Philosophical Aphorisms: Critical Encounters with Heidegger and Nietzsche By Daniel Fidel Ferrer 2 ©2004 Daniel Fidel Ferrer. All rights reserved. No part of this hook may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher or author. Some brief cataloging. Ferrer, Daniel Fidel (1952- ) Philosophical Aphorisms: Critical Encounters with Heidegger and Nietzsche / Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Ontology. 2. Metaphysics. 3. Philosophy, German. I. Ferrer, Daniel Fidel, 1952-. II. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900. III. Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976. 3 Dedication and Acknowledgements To my larger family: José Ferrer, Juana Espinosa Fradera Ferrer, Efrain Ferrer, Ernesto Bartoleme Ferrer, Gustie Ruth Lindstrom Ferrer, Ernesto Bartoleme Ferrer, Jr., Joseph and Helen Longrich Ferrer, Alice Amanda Ferrer, Dolores Juanita Ferrer, Louise (Reavis) Ferrer, Shobha Ferrer, Vandana Dayal, Ashmita Rita Ferrer, Marguerita Ruth Ferrer, Ernesto Jo Ferrer, Laurie and Daniel Large, and Scott Young. To Dr. Gupta and family. To Timothy Bagley. To Richard Pulaski and Harvey Williams. To Dr. Alfred Denker. To Dr. Holger Zaborowski. To Samara Anarbaeva, working with the German and English text. To Central Michigan University Libraries and staff. This text was started in the summer of 1974. 4 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ..................................................................... 3 Prelude Preface Introduction ........................................................... 5 An Experiment with the Philosophical Aphorism .................................. 13 Aphorisms Martin Heidegger and the new other beginning (Anfang)............. 93 Aphorisms: recent and new developments .......................................... 126 Aphorisms: Heidegger on Zarathustra. .............................................. 193 Aphorisms on Martin Heidegger's Nietzsche Encounter .......................... 199 Martin Heidegger and Nietzsche's Overman: Aphorisms on the Attack ........ 264 Martin Heidegger Contra Hegel – outlined .......................................... 297 The relationship between Being and Time (1927) and Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) ........................ 302 Martin Heidegger as Interrogator ...................................................... 319 Conclusions .............................................................................. 324 Literature and General References .................................................... 325 5 Prelude Preface Introduction "...it is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book – what everyone else does not say in a book." Nietzsche. Twilight of the Idols, section 'Skirmishes of an untimely man' #51, 1888. Following Nietzsche's methodology and ambition, I want to say in this "book" more than anyone else said anywhere at any time. The key insight was in ascertaining Nietzsche's depth and understanding of the methodology of aphorisms. All of the great philosophers Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger uniquely and creatively altered the very nature of philosophy through the fundamental and radical transformation of the essential nature of the philosophical methodology. I am going to try to follow their pathway in my own small approach. Nietzsche used different methodologies, but it was the aphorism that Nietzsche became the dedicated master. The aphorism has a long history from the early times, for example, Aphorism written in 400 BC by Hippocrates (460-377 BC) or the Latin writer Valerius Marcus Valerius (43 AD104 AD) on up to our age. Aphorisms or something close to them have been used in India (sutras) and perhaps China and Japan (koan) for a long time. Recently, in China the Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung was printed in the 100s of millions. Supposedly, every adult in China was to have copy. Of course, some writers, philosophers, and thinkers are more self-conscious about using the aphorism as a methodology as opposed to selecting quotes or quips (I think of Bob Hope). In addition, we have ancient wall graffiti or the phenomena of car bumper-stickers as examples of the cultural aphorism. This writing project is not a question of scholarship or the kindred use of poetry. I have already learned to walk, run, dance, fly on earth, but I am also ready to go weightless. These writings are attempts to go from peak to peak in the whole process of selfeducation. Before I could 'give' anything to the educated, I must first educate myself and it is this process that is documented in these writings. These writings were not produced by first thinking everything through and then writing down the story and its explanation for some common average person (the 'one'). This is not a book similar to a history lesson. The voyage on these seas was a different process. Every rock I turned up and/or went around is in here. All the steps and jumps are in here. Sometimes where I fell down is all part of the process and these up-jumps from the ground are also somehow found 'in' these writings. Stumbling is perhaps the rule in attempts at genuine philosophical thinking. The nature of philosophical thinking should reveal itself here because I have tried to be at the "roots" (in the very soil) of thought. Remember what the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) remarked in the Preface to his Philosophical Investigations (circa 1949), "The best that I could write would never be more than philosophical remarks; my thoughts were soon crippled if I tried to force them on in any single direction against their 6 natural inclination. -And this was, of course, connected with the very nature of the investigation." I have tried to follow these instructions and not to 'force' my thoughts into some direction or to somehow help the reader understand these writings. If a reader does not understand my aphorisms is that my fault, the reader's, the grammar, the language, or just a simple lack of depth? Some of these aphorisms are written in blood and the reader may get bloody reading and unpacking these aphorisms. Sometimes, you have to break eggs. You may see the Nietzschean hammer breaking the eggs. Well, so be it – so much for eggs. Dangerous thoughts may revolt and break things. Aphorisms may unfurl and leap off the page and attack you – do not sit down and take it – use your gray matter and attack back. Aphorisms may be like a snake or spider or big cat crouched and waiting to leap on your back in the dark when you least expect (reach up and bite you). On the other hand, were you expecting the hidden dragon? Nietzsche said, "I no longer pay regard to readers: how could I write for readers? ... But I take note, for me." (KSA XII, p. 450, KGW VIII-2, p. 114, MGW XIV, 373f.). How do I write for you – the reader? Let us be clear on who writes and who reads the text. This is not an explaination of some old dry, historical philosopher. This is my living thought. I have tried to pack them up as well as I could. We have grown accustomed to having everything done for 'us', so that no thinking is required. Well, not this time; you have to engage in philosophical thinking when reading these writings (or, so I hope). This so called "book" is not like a normal book that is nicely wrapped up and made easy for you. I make no pretense of offering anything 'great' in these writings, but perhaps as you unriddle your own thoughts, it may all be 'worth it' for you to read these writings; on the other hand, you may not 'gain' anything but actually 'lose' something as you read these aphorisms. Perhaps it is something you should 'lose'. This so called "book" is not designed to help you understanding Heidegger or Nietzsche – perhaps all books that do attempt that are indeed a real folly of a concept. Be careful, since honesty governs any good strategic reading. After reading these aphorisms, you and I may both be at a loss for words, thoughts, and deeds. As Ludwig Feuerbach said, there is more to life than just interpreting the world, since the trick is to change the world. Maybe we just need to change a few minds. What is important is beyond the simple details. While it is in some sense undeniable that we are what we 'read', on the other hand, we make the "text" disappear under our interpretation, since the 'understanding' is limited as a type of thinking, as a type of methodology for philosophical thought. Will the incessant noise in your head alarm you? Or are you just another complacent reader of philosophy? Are you looking for the rational foundation of truth as if Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant were still alive and well? Keep looking. Wisdom can be put on a platter and given to the MTV crowd and everyone will go home happy (bête noire). Confronting the popular with philosophy always meets with mixed or shall we tell the truth – with bad results. The greatest good (athondon and summum bonum) and the absolute idea are not given here. Values should all be twisted out and left behind with metaphysics. 7 This articulation of philosophical writing is only for the faithful (semper fidelis). As a consequence, perhaps you can leave right now, since these peaks are very high and you may not yet be ready for such high altitudes. 8000 meter peaks are not for everyone as we shall see. Pondering the profound is not for everyone on every day, since some days are to live the unexamined life. As Nietzsche once suggested you must hear all of this with your third ear and only then will you 'hear' or 'see' it right. Is all of this "my philosophy" – perhaps not!! Yes and no. You can try to unriddle the riddle or perhaps it will unriddle you in the knot of philosophizing. I am talking to 'you' the "reader" or perhaps you did not 'hear' this right. The finger is pointing toward a philosophical text that is not a just a typical philosophical text. Do you have the ability to "see" where this finger is pointing or is that to clear for you? Given the subtle and perhaps difficult nature of philosophical thought, it may seem like capturing this in language is, without a doubt, a little problematic for any reader and of course let us not forget the writer and thinker of these aphorisms. Nietzsche said, "That for thousands of years European thinkers thought merely in order to prove something – today, conversely, we suspect every thinker who"wants to prove something" Beyond Good and Evil, part five, #188). This is not your philosophy as taught in university departments as if you were looking for the proof of God's existense or the proof for moral laws and triumph of good or evil – no is this more complex than this simple sandbox version of philosophy and philosophizing, where you learn about proof and logic. Given these dangerous questions marks and general red marks from the hammer, what should we make of this medley of thoughts? Heidegger wants us to think one thought – these aphorisms are a flood of thoughts and ideas about other thoughts and ideas; and what may all this mean?---so how does Heidegger write 100+ volumes about a single thought. Can we nitimur in vetium? Who are my predestined readers? Where are they? I am not sure I have given everyone the right answers in this text, but perhaps I have given some of the right – questions. Aphorisms, aphorismus, aphorismos -not just a definition or short statement of a principle; but more than that, aphorisms are thoughts and ideas encapsulated in language. The thinking process is some how created and caught in language. But in the case of aphorisms, the claim is that they are closer and more directly linked to thinking. That is, thoughts not strained into some formal or systematic book or essay that is a representation of some thoughts that are forced and re-worked into a pseudo-structure of a written "book". Yes, the aphorism methodology is an anti-book format. These are not philosophical "works" (Werke). Wittgenstein's Investigations and Heidegger's Contributions are not really investigations or contributions – both of them deny that the titles of those works speak to the methodology question of what they are attempting to do with their philosophical "writings". Heidegger says his 'writing' is not "giving the impression that it is dealing with "scholarly contributions" aimed at some "progress" in philosophy."(GA 65, first few sentences). Hence, even the title of his philosophical writing in this case is exceedingly problematic. Heidegger says, "Future thinking is a thinking that is underway." (GA 65, first page). Aphorisms do not have an internal formal structure, so they are not completed and hence, come to a formal end (a book's 8 pseudo-conclusion). In the other words, we can always continue to think more thoughts and add more aphorisms. Aphorisms are a perfect example of thinking that is constantly underway and starting over; thinking that begins over and over every time that I start a new aphorism. Aphorisms are a keen example of thinking that is flowing and underway. The issue of when to come to an end will be taken up in the conclusion of this writing project. Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781) is one of the major works in the history of philosophy; however, it is complex and difficult to understand. Kant says he was working out the method, that is, the proper method for metaphysics. "It is a treatise on the method, not a system of the science itself; but it catalogs the entire outline of the science of metaphysics, both in respect of its boundaries and in respect of its entire internal structure." (Critique of Pure Reason, p. Bxxii). Kant said this in the preface and I am not sure he carried it through in his completed "book", but the method issue is certainly one of the central purposes of his project. The second part is called the 'Doctrine of Method' and includes a discussion of one of Kant's key concepts (now generally forgotten): "architectonics". Kant said in the introduction, "Transcendental philosophy is here the idea of a science, for which the critique of pure reason is to outline the entire plan architectonically, i.e., from principles, with a full guarantee for the completeness and certainty of all the components that comprise this edifice." (Critique of Pure Reason, p. A13). Do you feel the weight and metaphysical heaviness of the Kantian thought and methodology? This seems almost a complete opposite to the use of the methodology of aphorisms. Can we now make the point that perhaps in contrast to metaphysical thinking, the aphoristic methodology may be able to lead us out of metaphysical thinking, or at least prepare some of the ground for those modern anti-metaphysical tendencies? Can we attempt to break out of the metaphysical web by using the pseudo-structure of a philosophy "book" or "work" or "contributions" to philosophy? Kant said something that needs to be read and re-read, and then re-read again; since this sounds like the great critical thinker that is in fact – Kant (not what the current reading of Kant would have us believe). Kant is reported to have said the following in his lectures on Logic (note this was published late in Kant's lifetime). "How should it be possible to learn philosophy anyway? Every philosophical thinker builds is own work, so to be speak, on someone's else's ruins, but no work has ever come to be that was to be lasting in all its parts. Hence, one cannot learn philosophy, then, just because it is not yet given. But even granted that there is a philosophy actually at hand, no one who learned it would be able to say he was a philosopher, for subjectively his cognitions of it would always be only historical." (Lectures on Logic, "The Jäsche Logic", first published in 1800, et. p. 538). Kant right above this remark hits the nail on the head, when he says, "No one at all can call himself a philosopher who cannot philosophize. Philosophizing can be learned, 9 however, only through practice..." (Lectures on Logic, "The Jäsche Logic", first published in 1800, et. p. 538). This all points us toward a deeper understanding of what it means to philosophize, by having critical encounters and to confront philosophers and thinkers with task of thinking itself. Critical thinking is design to engage a philosopher at the deepest level of their thought. Philosophy is philosophizing, and I hope this is an example of real authentic philosophy. Kant must speak to us across 200 years of human history; and indeed, his thinking is not dead. Let Kant speak. Readers must be long and perhaps a touch of silence would have helped when you reading this text. Light feet are needed for any serious climbing and for reading aphorisms. You ask about the Hegelian system of metaphysics during the day, but wouldn't you rather read Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1792-1799) late at night. Some of these aphorisms are heavy thoughts (the weight of ages and years of metaphysic's preponderance) and others; I hope, should be light and flutter from the peaks. I am not entirely happy with Nietzsche or Heidegger or a number of other thinkers (why do this at all if everything is fine). Hence, a polemical stance may yet see the light of day or maybe just stars at night. Who would really want someone to be a "disciple"? Way too low for Heidegger and Nietzsche. Philosophers and disciples are a contradiction in terms. Does our will to life, will to our love, will to philosophy – only just mean a will to more of the same? Hint or answer – which do you crave now? Nietzsche said, "A new species of philosophers is coming up: I venture to baptize them with a name that is not free of danger. As I unriddle them, insofar as they allow themselves to be unriddled – for it belongs to their nature to want to remain riddles at some point – these philosophers of the future may have a right – it might also be a wrong – to be called attempters. This name itself is in the end a mere attempt and, if you will, a temptation." (Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, part 2, #42). Can you hear with your third ear the call for you to join ranks with the "attempters"? This prize is what Nietzsche wants us to become. Hyperborean Maxims, perhaps this is all what we must say and let the light of truth appear in the darkness night. Underneath this text is riddle that we all must now search for and this is the finger directing you to think for yourself. Are you still looking for the rational foundation to our thinking? Look no further! Through these writings and ponderings have I finally found myself under a rock? Now that these writings have been put on paper, are they finally 'done"? Will I not re-work these and re-publish them in another few years? Are you having trouble with your reading or have you realized you need to re-think everything you held close. You found them and then just kept them as a book in a library. The more books you have the more important you think you are based on the volumes of others' work? Where are your volumes? 10 You readers of these aphorisms may advance, may gain an advantage over me, you may fall backwards into a philosophical abyss of relativism, or take wings and fly... Values need to be shaken like a good martini not stirred. The cup must be first empty, then full, and then empty again. Perhaps all that can be said in the end is that we must transverse some dangerous and novel question marks. Some unforgotten thoughts are now lost in the dustbin of history. Some aphorisms may require a long time to read and decipher – well, so be it. Aphorisms can also be a place and location for pondering, brooding, and ruminating. To muse is not a bad thing. Are you ready for the refutations, the antithesis, and the final contradiction to all you have thought before (fixed ideas)? – It can now be thrown out in all of the bath water of philosophy. Be prepared for an entirely new beginning, a new way of thinking and philosophizing! Let us start shortly. Do you shudder at so much brevity in one place? All this may drive you mad one day. Where is our third ear when we need it? Who would want to start with the Megarian poet Theognis (600 BC), for example, in the new so-called public institutions of universities and their philosophy departments? Why do we sub hoc signo – Nietzsche and Heidegger, and of course all philosophy? Somewhere as a reader of those aphorisms, (yes – you) you may find them utterly unendurable – remember the aphorisms were not written "for" you. Try to be light again; you deserve to gain some altitude on the mountain. Do you not like parables or is it reality shows that light up your life? What life could that be? I hope you take everything to heart and then drive a stake into the heart and perhaps become a martyr – at least your becoming will be your own. The Buddha's shadow is still seen on the cave wall – only Marx has completely left the cave. Perhaps all writing is the way of Schadensfroh. Meister Eckhart (1260-1327) said he wanted to ask God to rid himself of God, so you may ask God to make you an unbreakable heart or to rid yourself of these questions marks. Fat chance! Reading aphorisms is like getting in and out of cold water or it is just like reaching the summit of a mountain and tarrying too long at the top – a very dangerous thing to do, since reaching the top is optional and returning is not. Perhaps too high an altitude has not been good for rational arguments. But what makes humans strive for the heights no matter what else? What drives people to the mountain tops? What drives people to philosophical thinking? The underlying interrogative nature of humanity breaks out. Heidegger's case is like a door, which has a sign overhead that says, "no entrance" on one side and on the other side says, "no exit". Perhaps Heidegger's fundamental philosophical thinking has an entrance, but we have problem that it has no easy exit or maybe no exit at all. Although Heidegger taught many courses on Hegel, he never published a single large written monograph on Hegel and the smaller projects he did publish are not of the same caliber as many of his other publications. Heidegger has made a point that once you enter Hegel's system you are caught by his assumptions. Are Hegel's assumptions and presuppositions different than Heidegger's assumptions and 11 presuppositions? Hegel's system is so closely tied to his assumptions so that it is difficult to get any philosophical space or breathing room for thinking. Heidegger is more ambiguous about his assumptions. Where can we find an exit from Heidegger? Has Heidegger given us more philosophical breathing room for thinking and has he allowed Heideggerians to move into the Heidegger house; hence, the extreme amount of published writing about Heidegger? Help? Where is the exit? Put Heidegger and Nietzsche directly in front of us and go directly to confront them – we cannot "go around" like our neo-Kantians friends have done with Kant. Even a Heideggerian leap will not help us to engage them. Has Heidegger succeeded in actually overcoming or overturning Hegel? Heidegger said let us put Hegel in front of us and then run in the opposite direction. In which direction does Heidegger want us to run? Why do we assume that there is some kind of progress and direction toward a better something in philosophy (or is the differences between Hegel and Heidegger just a simple matter of taste? Answer: no)? Progress is always an underlying assumption and presupposition for philosophers. Is Heidegger better than Hegel for us, since he is more recent? Immanuel Kant said, "One can begin to calculate just after the building of the city of Rome, at which time the seven sages in Greece flourished through their epigrams, which the Orientals already had long ago. Aphorisms are what one calls many thoughts compressed into a few words." (Metaphysik L2, 1790-1791, AK 28: 535, et. p 302). We will attempt to follow Kant's lead. You see there is reason to again and again return to Kant. As Heidegger said, as long as there is philosophy on the planet we need Kant. All philosophers need to be our dialogue – although we have taken Heidegger and Nietzsche to be named in our dialogue most of all. Remarks on this specific text (which you hold in your hand). "the text finally disappeared under the interpretation" (Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, part two, #38). Nietzsche italicized this remark for good reason. On one hand the text is just the text, on the other hand, the text is insufficient, what has not been said is filled with treasures. The unthought is what is between the lines – you the reader may reside in the hermeneutical sphere. This "book" was written over a long period of time. Of course, it includes other thinkers than just Heidegger and Nietzsche. Some the text is more or less than aphorisms. Some of these are closer to scholia than to the form of aphorisms. Perhaps I have taken philosophical license with the format and methodology of some of these pages. For my readers you may take a step back and re-think the methodology of thinking. Part of the thrust of this "book" and this writing project is to look into the process of the thinking, language, and writing it all down on paper or on the computer. Note the recent interest in blogs. The anti-philosophy movements within philosophy itself are attempts to get closer 12 to the roots of thinking and language. So many parts of this "book" are not about the contents, but more about the 'how' and the 'processes' of thinking (philosophizing). This text can be viewed as attempts at philosophizing. Have these attempts ripened enough to be published? I am the author and I say "yes"; but others may have different ideas – that is ok, since the ripening process may be more of an art than a science. A note of caution: the process of reading this text may not be to read it through in a short time, since it may be hard to digest these thoughts and questions in a brief time. By now you may have guessed and solved the riddle that this "book" was not written to enlighten or inform you about some subject or topic. I did not research Heidegger or Nietzsche and then come up with a book about them. If you want to understand Heidegger and Nietzsche, there are other places to look for 'information' about them and their ideas. This is my encounter and dialogue with them and other philosophers. Perhaps a better title of this writing project could be: Dialogues with Philosophers. I am not going to give you arguments on Heidegger's or Nietzsche's ideas or their philosophical positions – you must go elsewhere if you want to read about their ideas. This is an unsystematic work by choice. As the author, I want to be clear to you the reader of what I expect of you – engage this "book" and then attempt your own dialogue. Although this is not a proper preface or introduction I will leave with a remark from Heidegger about the texts found in the Will to Power. "These passages are for the most part not simple, incomplete fragments and fleeting observations; rather, they are carefully worked out "aphorisms," as Nietzsche's individual notations are customarily called. But not every brief notation is automatically an aphorism, that is, an expression or saying which absolutely closes its borders to everything inessential and admits only what is essential." (Nietzsche volume 1, et p. 11). I hope that only what is essential is included in this text. All of the rest can be thrown out. Please enjoy these musings in the spirit that they were written. But if omissions, errors or defects are found within, please forgive them a little and have a little forbearance. 13 An Experiment with the Philosophical Aphorism Introduction This paper is an experiment with the philosophical aphorism and is inspired by an intensive reading and consideration of the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche. The contents and ideas are not necessarily Nietzschean. Rather, it is a Nietzschean "methodology" that is attempted. Nietzsche is the anti-system thinker par excellence. In the Twilight of the Idols he explains: "I mistrust all systematizers and I avoid them. The will to a system is a lack of integrity." ('Maxims and Arrows', #26) If we are to follow this Nietzschean instinct, we must try to not write an essay 'about' Nietzsche, but rather use his method and attempt our own philosophy. But what is Nietzsche's method? Nietzsche experimented with several different kinds of methodology. His greatest advancement is his effectiveness and skillful use of the aphorism. He is not the first one to use this method. Perhaps Gaius Catullus or Marcus Martialis made the first attempts in this direction. More recently, this method has been used by a diverse group of thinkers. The French thinkers Sebastien-Roch-Nicolas Chamfort and Francois de la Rochefoucauld are well known for their aphorisms. The Germans like F.W.J. Schelling, Ludwig Feurbach, Arthur Schopenhauer, Georg Lichterberg, Raoul Anernheimer, Hugo Hofmannsthal, Arthur Schnitzler, Richard Beer-Hofmann, Karl Kraus, Hermann Bahr, Rudolf Schroder, Marie Ebner-Eschenbach, and Max Horkheimer use the aphoristic methodology. However, it is the philologically trained Nietzsche whose name has become almost synonymous with the use of the aphorism, and has made it the most acclaimed and fitting instrument of wit and wisdom. Walter Kaufmann calls Nietzsche's method monadological, but it is much more than this and richer. Nietzsche experimented with many forms of the aphorism; he also called them riddles, parables, epigrams, interludes, and maxims. In a similar way, Ludwig Wittgenstein writes in the Preface to the Philosophical Investigations, The best that I could write would never be more than philosophical remarks; my thoughts were soon crippled if I tried to force them on in any single direction against their natural inclination. -And this was, of course, connected with the very nature of the investigation. Wittgenstein's anti-method methodology and problem of forcing his thoughts in a 'single direction' during the writing of the Philosophical Investigations may lead to an aphoristic methodology, which is close to Wittgenstein's "method" during this phase. 14 With philosophical systematizers like Hegel or Spinoza, it is possible to try to re-present their systems, because they have an order, regularity and an attempted consistent position; but this is not the case with Nietzsche. Therefore, we cannot just re-present an aphorism or give a definition for a concept in Nietzsche's philosophy, for Nietzsche makes us attempt our own philosophy. Again, Wittgenstein thinks in a similar way, "I should not like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking. But, if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of his own." (Philosophical Investigations). Thus, the object of this experiment with the aphorism is to employ Nietzsche's antimethodological method as way of doing philosophy; for we are in search of Zarathustra's new love. As Nietzsche's says, One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil. Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you. Verily, my brothers, with different eyes shall I then seek my lost ones; with a different love shall I then love you. (Thus Spoke Zarathurstra, "On the gift-giving virtue") The following are some of Nietzsche's general pronouncements about the methodology of aphorisms: It is aphorisms. It is aphorisms? may those who would reproach me thus reconsider a little and then ask pardon of themselves. (Gesammelte Werke (pub. 1920-29) MGW, XXI, #80) Readers of aphorisms. The worst readers of aphorisms are the author's friend if they are intent on guessing back from the general to the particular instance to which the aphorism owes its origin; for with such pot-peeking they reduce the author's whole effort to nothing; so that they deservedly gain, not a philosophic outlook or instruction, but at best, or at worst, nothing more than the satisfaction of vulgar curiosity. (Mixed Opinions and Maxims, #129) Praise of aphorisms. A good aphorism is too hard for the tooth of time and is not consumed by all millennia, although it serves every time for nourishment: thus it is the great paradox of literature, the intransitory amid the changing, the food that always remains esteemed, like salt, and never loses its savor, as even that does. (Mixed Opinions and Maxims, #168) In other cases, people find difficulty with the aphoristic form: this arises from the fact that today this form is not taken seriously enough. An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather, one has then to begin its exegesis, for which is required an art of exegesis. (On the Genealogy of Morals, preface section 8). 15 The aphorism, the apothegm, in which I am the first among the Germans to be a master, are the forms of "eternity"; it is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book what everyone else does not say in a book. (Twilight of the Idols, "Skirmishes of an untimely man" section #51). Whoever writes in blood and aphorisms does not want to be read but to be learned by heart. In the mountains the shortest way is from peak to peak: but for that one must have long legs. Aphorisms should be peaks – and those who are addressed, tall and lofty. (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, "On Reading and Writing"). The question to provide here is how to approach these forms of "eternity" (not eternal of course, but some long lasting). There is more to this methodology than just a short form of a book. Part of this methodology is an attack on logic, since the approach does not follow a logical form of syllogism. Aphorisms are not some variety of syllogistic argument. In addition, aphorisms are not short philosophical essays, since there is not a clear format connecting ideas. Conversely, there does indeed seem to be some affinity with poetry and some aphorisms are poetic. Aphorisms are nuggets of some kind of "eternity". We all need something otherwise why we read anything at all. Aphorisms 1 The main task of philosophy is not to know life, but rather to affirm our earthly life. That is, to live within a present time, not to hope for a future time. Philosophy's mandate is to appropriate thought and life together, without both of them just becoming sounds and words. 2 Nothing from Nothing leaves Nothing but only for the "They" (everyday awareness). 3 Without Nothing we would not have anything at all. Nothing must be, for without it we would not be open to the destiny of Being. Truth would remain for God only; and we could only speak of the chaos we enjoy and experience everyday truth as our own selfdeception. 4 Love can withstand all (even time), except for its own ground to be brought into question; since this splits it apart and results in a falling into the abyss. Through life dialectic, love 16 becomes a growing abyss. Insofar as they are both human we must go through life affirming them both and growing within their spaces and limits. 5 You say, "Everything is basically O.K.". With this statement I see you, a puffed up decadent, forever caught without history a non-political animal. Do you not see this lost animal? For him, the universal never moves the particular. The only thing left is a little atom fellow, he who speaks from his little niche speaks only of his little niche. Never forget how and why our system stinks. Philosopher as nose! 6 No longer can we say the state is the family, for the state is actually not something else, it is only the state. So it is with Being and the One (Hen), there is Being and the One; thus Being is not the One and the One is not Being, both are by themselves. Problem of a Henologist. 7 God created man to suffer as mortals condemned to time and their own death. Hence the main goal of mankind to overcome his master and leap to freedom. God lives on and we suffer, thus the end of God is the end and completion of suffering. Next step God must suffer. 8 Judging by history, God's sense of humor can only be morbid. 9 History can only learn by becoming human class education. There is no history in general. All other history is really just personal history, a history of personalities. The goal of human history is to become humankind history, for the peoples to be the rulers of themselves. Freedom for all peoples! Perhaps our only idol... 10 The cosmic joke was invented by man to laugh at himself, for all other beings would never laugh at this creature. He thinks too much of himself and has only by luck remained on earth. A dreamer by nature, he has all too often faced away from the suffering. Hoping for a dream world, a world beyond this one; since he hopes for a dream world, he only finds a world which is a joke. 11 17 Our "hopes" and "faiths" are complex ways of dealing with the intersection of dreams and reality. 12 Aphorisms are the author's attempt at being profound. The results, therefore, are either that one goes into the depths or they go forgotten as even attempts. 13 A painter's fantasy: To become a jockey for a six-foot ant. Even Nietzsche would have a tough time affirming this; for it reaches beyond thinking and philosophy to genuine craziness. 14 Philosophers have been interested mainly in origins and the causes of things anything to get away from the "now". Philosophers can even escape the "now" by writing about it. Just think! Philosophers are always condemned to only writing and thinking "about" the "now" and "life". And they must do justice to life, but philosophers are also condemned to language and words perhaps it is folly to even think language can do justice to living phenomena. 15 My own paradox. Only in being Nothing am I Something. I am a thing that feels and experiences Nothingness, it reaches me. Nothing comes from some thing. Not the other way around. 16 Nietzsche was a beginning and an end. He speaks to the beginning and its start but at the same time he is not that beginning. It is always a joy to hear about the beginning but we must never forget that Nietzsche is not his overman. Nevertheless, he ends the entire Western philosophical epoch (started by Plato). Nietzsche, even more than Kant, is a philosopher who we must consider, even though Kant is a great critical bottleneck which philosophy almost did not make it through; Nietzsche is even more so. There is still a war over whether Nietzsche will be admitted and this speaks to Nietzsche's power after he is accepted and taken in as a philosopher and thinker. Perhaps philosophers will never make it past Nietzsche. 17 There are two kinds of philosophers methodologists and non-methodologists. Hegel is the greatest methodologist in Western History and Nietzsche is contra him. As Heidegger, gained experience, his main realization was his own lack of depth with regard to method; that is, with regard to his power of thinking. This, of course, shows itself as Heidegger's non-ability to think about the world (e.g., political and class relationships). But only Heidegger has taken a step beyond the mish-mash of Husserlian methodology, he was never caught by it. He always had too much philosophical power. 18 18 It is only by taking the chance that we might lose our path, will we be taking a chance that we might find it also. However, there are no guarantees that we will find our own path ever. Perhaps only those of us who have a little sense for their destiny even have the barest chance to find a right and proper path for themselves. Not every one has a destiny to fulfill and even those that do not all of them have the power to go with the heat, to hear the call and see the signs of the gods. Moria as our life. 19 Truth is part of the cosmic joke. I maintain truth as an illusion for life, as a small part of a dream, unknown slipping part of Reality. How could we ever know truth "in itself"? A folly for Sunday morning. 20 My own task. To change the mind of god, so that she will be rational. You say, "God is a woman." And I say to you, my brothers, "who else could have a son?" Bible as a misprint. 21 Nietzsche is peachy. Perhaps over the top or just too easy, but you have said it and now it is with you. 22 According to common sense, philosophers think too much. And according to modern philosophers, we should release ourselves from rational thinking, that is, from thinking too much. We need to liberate ourselves from Reason (Ratio). But does that really mean to stop thinking? Answer: No, but in essence it might mean the same thing. What are the consequences of giving up reason? Certainly not just irrationalism. But what then? Let us not be caught affirming dreams. 23 Everyone can speak to a mystery, because it is easy to talk about nothing; but it is a divine act to touch the depth of life with language. 24 A women's beauty cannot be understood without seeing her grow, for even gods unfold in time. But that kind of beauty does not come through a mortal's own strength. 25 Fichte and Husserl both generated the world out of the Ego. 19 26 Materialism is contra idealism. But nothing is idealism contra to, mostly because in idealism every "ism" is taken as a moment in the history of an Ego's projection and positing. 27 Mankind's greatest gift and burden is talking, without it, we are nothing (unhuman) and with it (you name this) we are something (indeed, too human). 28 All happiness wants to speak and show itself as Love, and Love shows itself as happiness and joy, and world.... 29 In spite of all things to the contrary, women shall one day rule the world. What? You doubt me? – read between the lines. 30 Does it make a difference whether we believe in an afterlife or not? Answer: No, for we all must return to our maker. Unless our maker had some weird ideas about why we are here on earth. I am sure; nevertheless, we will be the last to know. But to common understanding, believing is one hundred per cent of the game (i.e., you are already there). 31 Feuerbach shows the power of Hegel. Right out of Hegel comes Feuerbach's power. Hegel's first son was this fiery brook. This amazing Feuerbach corrected Hegel's mistake of not including the future, he was the first to move philosophy toward the future. And of course, Nietzsche is the last one to be a fragment of the future. Since Nietzsche, all philosophers have even lost their sense of destiny within history they have yet to really reach history. However, both Feuerbach and Hegel are part of the spirit of their time and this speaks to how they look at the future. Nietzsche was alive to this problem like no other thinker. And so we must ask Heidegger about the future. Karl Marx is, of course, closer to our own future than either Nietzsche or Heidegger, since Marxism is the only one we can affirm for the present era (e.g., the later Sartre). The dawn is still on its way. 32 20 We shall one day have to believe that life is a disease, only then will we realize its cure. Both are a precondition for humanity to realize its goal. Many things still unspoken. 33 Faith, is that dream, is this a dream or vision? All our hopes perhaps best only riddles. Heretofore, only a few great riddles have been seen, in next era we will create a generation of riddle knowers and seekers. Next step: poetical riddles! But is faith a riddle, or can it be only our irrational side coming out? Faith is something that points past reason and all rationality, our other side. Ninety-five per cent of all people have problems when facing their own death, but the other five per cent is equally split between those that are sure there is no afterlife and those that know there is one. Certainty negates faith, for it seems faith is only for those who are not yet sure. 34 Our world needs no interpretation, for it does even exist. A world without end; endless interpretations of a world still without ground. Can you believe it not even an interpreter! Does the will have the power to affirm this? First task: find this will. No subjectum, is this even a possibility? Not even a question for an object. 35 A self-becoming identity of subject/object, that is, not an objective subject/object (Schelling) or a subjective subject/object (Fichte), But rather it is a process, a very special 'self-becoming' which only after a struggle and labor becomes an identity of subject/object. It is not only a subject/object relation, but also a self-awareness of an absolute identity within the subject and object. But this process is also a becoming of a self-realization. The self becomes a knower of this absolute identity of subject/object, until there is no relationship other than one of absolute identity. 36 The last men are condemned to happiness, that is, to abstract happiness. Only within the context of being mortals on earth can we as thinkers speak to an authentic happiness. We must never forget our own humanness. 37 Philosophers in America today need sonar, because they follow thinkers that have no depth. If you are a philosophical laborer, at least you should work below the surface, but Ayers, Quine, Carnap and friends are not even shallow. Real thinkers run deep and fast. 38 Music is the only analogy we have for life. Listening can you hear it? 21 39 Musical time is the same as our own experiencing of time. 40 What are politicians to us now! 41 Private property needs to be overcome, or our attachment to it. However, how can we even think of doing that now, but again, how can we go on with this system of private property and even pretend to be near our humanness. As this system starts cracking, all we hear is, "Well, if this is the Titanic, I am going first class." And so they shall. The Bourgeoisie's last voyage. 42 Space is the limit which only speed can overcome. Hence, the truth of speed is time. 43 Mysticism is either the answer to the human condition or not even something worthy of laughter. 44 If you do not start with the Absolute, where do you begin? With what or whom could we start the Absolute systematic science? Can we start with a sensuous concrete being, an actual being or something that is more universal more abstract? A question between Feuerbach and Hegel. 45 The cold war as a battle over ideals. However, where does a thinker stand? If he critiques all ideals (idols), he stands on no ground at all, but on what grounds can he affirm any idols? Our hypothetical thinker stands nowhere. Since we all know where we stand, this is not even a question for us. 46 In the future everything will be important or nothing will. 22 47 Pain and suffering are the beginning of consciousness. 48 In overcoming suffering one will overcome being conscious. 49 The first sign of depth in a thinker is withdrawal; the second is many disparate friendships. A natural step of having all too much wisdom. But this problem stems from having only cosmic knowledge. Let us find a thinker who has depth in all things. A question for Sonar. 50 Mankind seemingly only a silent joke. 51 Inhumanness for mankind only. 52 "Who is man?" you say. I say rather, "Who was man?" From: A Sea Mountain. 53 The land of truth. Only a dream by the young Schelling. It might have been partly faith, too. 54 No life without love! 55 Beauty has lost her power when she cannot overcome all things. 56 The Greeks, contrary to modern man, did not know much about beauty, but they were never at a loss to experience it. 57 23 A revolution in thought can only be grounded in itself, for it needs no further justification. But what is a revolution in thought? Is it only a product of the time, the era? And, as such, can it only be thought first and then in praxis? Is it not also true that we must change the universal (the state-system), and then the particular (the individual as consciousness) will change and be transformed? 58 Music is replacing Religion, but this time everyone knows its big business. 59 The present age is without pain. 60 Music speaks to our everyday existence more than either religion or philosophy; therefore, we must start our critique there, with the unfolding of its truth, its truth is: as art, it remains class art. 61 All beings have their own self-same unity; even though it does not last, while they exist beings have a unity unto themselves. Only God had an eternal unity, an identity which is a self-same, timeless, and an absolute certain unity. Beings show themselves fully in movement, process while they are disrupting their unity or in their changes through time. Aristotle and Hegel knew this... 62 Systems in philosophy are needed to bring goals within our human context, only a system can ground and bring unity to both metaphysical and practical goals. These goals are always self-positing goals only the many believe that they are eternal ideals, but to critique all our ideals leaves us with nothing, which is perhaps worse than having somewhat shadow goals. 63 System means planning and forethought also results and goals. 64 Who is the subject of Hegel's system? Hint: the absolute is in itself already close to us. However, how close can we get without being overcome? Can we be struck with too much truth? Perhaps no questions at all. 24 65 Where there is no movement there is God. Since God cannot be where there is movement, God is and remains the background for all motion. Yet where is this God nowhere ! 66 Our new goal progress. This, too, must be seen in terms of profits; because what does it really mean nothing less than progressive more and more profits, and those are only for the few and us, we should see to it that Idol has a better go at it than this. Progress toward freedom (not bourgeoisie) for all humanity. Profits for the people! 67 The university shall not fall from the revolution, but rather from boredom from meaninglessness. As for now, they are only holding tanks for "Yes sayers" - "No" to life and "yes" to the system (that is, the Capitalist system). Some systems are against life, others are for it; however, there are no reasons for us to be for life-seeking systems. Therefore, let us try life for a change. What is the value of life? Answer: nothing! 68 Let us not ask too often about truth it may destroy us! 69 Old age our natural beginning. An old philosopher's saying. 70 Philosophy is either the preparation for death or for life. 71 Being both is and is not, in between all existence is and is not hence becoming and time. 72 There is nothing worse than pity, except for a cold heart. 73 During certain moments we touch truth, and those moments are beyond meaning and meaninglessness, too. 25 74 Appearances are either everything or nothing (me on). A question between Plato and Nietzsche, plus a note of Goethe's. 75 Not all differences are good, which is contrary to "official sense"; but where is the highest Good, no plush perhaps it is not even near. 76 Haymarket Square, the best example of the American dream, then the Pullman strike another showing of where we came from. Of course E. Debs got six months in Woodstock, but still.... 77 Love is more than an emotion, a mood, but it does show itself through them; for it, in fact, includes everything. 78 A psychologist is the worst philosopher, and a philosopher who tries to be a psychologist is worse than death only Nietzsche can be both, and even he has more than a few problems as it is, it was that which brought Nietzsche to his philosophical knees, and finally will finish Nietzsche off. It was Nietzsche as a psychologist. That is exactly why Nietzsche fell into the project of transvaluing (notice not revaluing) all values, into the questionable realm of values. From our perspective, it was Nietzsche's non-ability to think through subjectivity (including the "overman") that leads to his curve into left field. However, this is still part of our problem, too. Since this is only a question for metaphysics, we must at the same time overcome metaphysics, and then cease all "overcoming" and leave it to itself. 79 Psychology haunts philosophy, and as such, leaves a bad odor in the nose of a philosopher. In fact, when people in philosophy psychologize it nauseates me. Mostly, it is a question of motives. 80 A psychologist worse than a scholar, but both are decadent. 26 81 Indeed, how many of the philosophers today are decadent or are symbolist without even knowing it? Do we still have the power to resist? Are we not caught in this web? 82 The great Eckhart said, "The knower and Known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God, as if He stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in Knowledge." Hegelian Theology starts there, but the "oneness" has to be reached through unfolding God, which is, of course, also unfolding the "I" or the "we". And this "oneness" cannot be seen by imagination (Vorstellung), but rather through knowledge (Begriff). 83 Reason is not our goal it is rather only our method. But this is only in vain against subjectivity. Bring on Kant, please. 84 Only after attaining freedom for all will we be open for the adventure of truth. 85 Can we say either space in finite or infinite without ever realizing we will never know? 86 Military intelligence is as we know a contradiction in terms. 87 To be a part of life, philosophy must speak to the future; but not as ideology. Our task is to move the present into the future with a little bit of change for the people. Perhaps the people will indeed be the government and the state. 88 The American way a science of love, including classes, of course. 89 We came into life pure and simple without negativity, and most of us leave in that condition, too it is only in between where we gain consciousness and become mortals. A hint about who we are. 27 90 Can any philosopher be sane in an insane world? Or be human within an inhuman system? A problem for Marcuse. 91 Goal: to catch life, but then what...? 92 What would existence be without our bodies? Pure thinking? But what would that mean? Existence must always include our bodies. Only God does not have body. In fact, could it be that God is a manifestation of our projection to do away with our bodies? As it is, our bodies are a constant reminder of our finitude. Nietzsche was one of the first to realize this; but yet, how far does this still move within philosophy, for it certainly goes beyond the limits of metaphysics. 93 Liberation and salvation once these were our goals, but now we are back on earth. 94 Music has a special relation to moods, yet how can we speak of such a complicated relationship. But what we always forget is the way moods influence the making of music. 95 Children are not only beautiful they are also joyous. A riddle for a cosmologist. 96 TV was the beginning of an era, but why are we still in the growing pains. Really, why is TV so bad? A new mode of awareness TV consciousness. 97 Let us go back to the 50's anything to get away from those scary 60's. 98 Dancing is a tuning into nature; yet, where do we see dancing in nature? Mostly in mating.... 99 28 In moonlight all things become holy beauty shines on mortals. 100 Ich bin nichts mehr, ich lebe nicht mehr gerne. F. Hölderlin. 101 Death has always been beyond good and evil. 102 There is no connection between truth and the Good no matter how many philosophers say so, but please see the joyous in the beautiful. A hint for a babysitter. 103 Is there meaning to life? You say, only if we give meaning to it. All this, my child, you will never know, since the end of the state is the precondition for a meaningful life for anyone. Insofar as there is meaning to life, it only comes from our movement toward the overcoming of the state. 104 Where did we get the category of existence from any way? Things could be easier. 105 Let us not dream impossible dreams a little reality even in dreams, please. 106 The eternal versus the finite....Was that life? Well then, once more, or eternally so. Is not Nietzsche in between? Could Nietzsche ever affirm one without the other? His philosophy is nothing less than an attempt to do just that. 107 Is anything really done? Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) 108 Aphorisms are not only philosophical; they are also a brave attempt at wisdom. Philosophy no longer needs to seek wisdom, rather only clarification. Where are the language mechanics now? 29 109 A single word has many meanings wouldn't it be nice for philosophers not to be troubled by it, for in fact some words have opposite meanings Hegel's joy. 110 Why has there been two thousand years without a single new God? I will tell you. So far we have only needed one, e.g., everyone has reached heaven right? Immortality has never been questioned, only which place one would be in, that has always been up for grabs. But just make sure a priest is near when the moment is near. Besides, we have had a God that is really three (Father, Son and Holy Ghost), plus, of course, God's counterpart, namely the Devil. 111 Seek divine knowledge, you say. I tell my children, rather reach for stillness. This may surprise you, but it is the only way to achieve divine and absolute knowledge. 112 Why have we gone out into outer space? Perhaps we shall meet our maker: but we could also meet our conqueror. We shall contact them, and they shall then conquer us. 113 Love is beyond values. 114 You flip the phrase, "Beyond good and evil," and I say to you, only a few moments of our life is "beyond good and evil"; the rest is, unfortunately, enwrapped within life and its value systems. And you must choose... 115 Why does love make us give so much of ourselves? 116 Do values have an ontological status? A question between Nietzsche and Heidegger. But what is the truth? Neither is true, because it is only a matter of perspective. For that matter, even metaphysics is only a question of "perspective." 30 117 The moment holds all of the future plus the past. Thus all is within a single moment. 118 Philosophy must be both edifying and not, since it depends on the individual for its substance and ground. Certainly a question between Hegel and Søren Kierkegaard, but Hegel reached through the question he really understood certainty, namely absolute certainty. 119 Every philosophy reflects a certain age in the growth of the individual and also a certain mood. But we must not let this truth knock us out. 120 What can two people share? Only life! Because we are condemned to it. But how do we strangers really dwell on earth? 121 Can we live without "answers" to "whys"? The life which we live needs "answers" for it gives us a stability, a house to dwell in, yet we must know (as Kant did), that most of the big "why" questions have no really ascertainable truth to them. Metaphysics has traditionally given us those "answers", but yet we find them without rational bases. When we ask "whys" we expect "reasons" in return; our task now is to live without "reasons" perhaps the first ones to do so since Socrates. 122 Aphorisms make one state positions powerfully, even though one's self does not hold that position. It is as it were the power of this style and form that makes one turn a phrase, to state a contradictory, to move against others powerfully; all in all, to try to give the statements as much striking power as one can. Hence, one gets a lot of contradictions and different positions in writing aphorisms. Obviously even here the method has authority over content. 123 No one can make judgments on "one-liners." Perhaps it would be a folly to even try to. 124 31 It does not matter where you are as long as you are where you want to be; even a child knows this but only a wise man knows why he really wants to be somewhere. Selfknowledge is the precondition for wisdom. 125 Tension is the overcoming of the dualism between mind and body. But like most 'overcoming' at some point you can return to the former position. However, there are some things where once you have 'overcome' them, that is it, there is no going back. The trick is how to discern which ones are which. 126 It does not matter where you are, as long as you are where you want to be. This time think for a moment. Again, please. 127 Who are the philalethes? Certainly not the philosophers. 128 Let us not be both directed, rather self-directed. The motto of a divorce. 129 I think there is no progress in art, for either it works and functions or it doesn't. 130 What is Marx's theory of revolution? to make it! 131 A philosopher's disease. To make the average person confused, that is to make everything into a mystery. Not all things are riddles, but a philosopher tries to make them so, and in so doing becomes an ideologist for the system. The main features of this system are clear...and we know what is needed. 132 Philosophers, too, need wisdom in their lives... 133 Question: Isn't your subjective analysis simply a psychological explanation? 32 Sartre: Absolutely not. I don't believe in psychology. With this a thinker speaks. 134 Where can we begin and end the absolute system of Wissenschaft (Science in general)? Hegel has asked himself this question and out of his depths comes the answer to both questions -it is namely, the Begriff. Plus we must not forget the end is the beginning and the beginning is the end (or results) we only go deeper and do the unfolding the Begriff as we go. The Science of Logic has two main divisions: Begriff as Seyn and Begriff as Begriff. Hence we start with Begriff and end with it, too! Perhaps this cannot be so? i.e., there is no relation between the Begriff and Seyn. But if there is, perhaps we have proven the ontological argument for God. This God would then be the absolute spirit as the most concrete reality. However, we today must ask ourselves yet a larger question: can we have a system in philosophy without God or a God concept? But not just a formal system, rather a system for reality. Needed: a system that accounts for reality and has necessity to it without God. This is a problem within German idealism – let it speak again. 135 Can we have goals without also stating that it is necessary to reach those goals? Yet why must humans have goals in the first place? Perhaps only to find or at worst to create necessity in their life hence meaning. 136 Humanity's telos nothing. 137 Natural consciousness (Hegel's term for common sense) has its own metaphysic or rather has no metaphysic for itself, only we see that it does indeed have a metaphysic. A question for an introduction to philosophy professor. 138 If you don't believe it, could you ever think it exists? 139 Esti gar apaidensia to me gignoskein tinon dei zetein apodeixin kai tinon ou dei. (For it is uneducated not to have an eye for when it is necessary to look for a proof, and when this is not necessary). Aristotle speaks to us here. 140 33 Is one world-government possible? And if so, what form would it take? In truth these are really not even questions, for who would be the rulers. Yet we even have to decide whether we are "for" or "against" it. Heretofore, all these questions could not be answered, not enough thinking... 141 America is kind of an indoklon for children. 142 Nietzsche was an example of not being able to get the universal and the particular together, he could only affirm the particular as true and thus the universal was either only a fiction or sometimes just chaos. For example he said, "Humanity does not progress, it does not even exist!" Can you believe this from a man who has given mankind our greatest gift, that is, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. No wonder Nietzsche could not fully understand his own "overman". But at least he knew that the end of the state was the precondition for the "overman". With this he was one with Karl Marx and M.A. Bakunin, yet how different they all were. 143 Does it really matter? Is this a question from the abyss or is it rather a question out of the fullness of life? 144 The more differences there are the greater the sameness will be. 145 What value judgments do we make when we accept the view of Sho Ken? The first question for a Buddhist. Why can the Buddha remain silent on so many questions? 146 Not only should we think physis krypteshai philei of Heraclitus, but also aletheia krypteshai philei. Nietzsche would not only affirm the latter, he would also say, "Truth is an error" my brothers. 147 It seems like most people think of man as some kind of animal. That is, an animal with reason (ratio) inside somewhere. The animal is the sensuous (aistheton) and reason is in the realm of the suprasensuous (noeton); thus the body is finite and the mind is infinite and we see this is all too easy for metaphysics to understand. But who is man? No longer 34 animal no longer just mind and body, rather an embodied dwelling within the meaning of the earth. 148 Can we live without passion? Human existence needs to affirm life with the power life, but not just an involvement passion. Since passion points toward the highest will to life, it also means a will to more more life. 149 One reason why aphorisms are such a delight is they have more than one meaning. For example, "to love God means to love no one." Or, to spell it out first meaning: if you love God and he does not exist, that is loving no one (or nothing); second meaning: if you love God, then you can love no other or no other one, that is, if you love God you can then not love a mortal only God; and the third meaning is: of course God is not a person in any way, therefore He is not a "one" if you love Him, you know that you can not love Him like a person, but only with a divine love, because He is beyond mortal love. Hence, we thinkers enjoy ambiguity. Heretofore, philosophers have only seen this occasionally in logic. A joke at the expense of language mechanics (or analytical types). Why are they in America? What has allowed them to grow here? 150 The language turn in philosophy must either go to logic or to poetry. Some people think that it was only Wittgenstein that was the language turn in philosophy. 151 Wittgenstein thought about the foundations of mathematics and Heidegger writes about Hölderlin, Trakl, Rilke and Char; but yet Wittgenstein gave money to Trakl, plus would quote R. Tagor. Heidegger wrote an article entitled, "Neuere Forschungen über Logik", which included a discussion of Russell and Whitehead. Hence, we see how great thinkers move in all realms, even though it may be in opposite directions. 152 Is not play the highest principle of the universe? Certainly only a playful question. 153 What is the fundamental nature (Wesen) of man? human nature. Are we basically evil, etc.? Answer: No, because it is not what or who we are right now, but rather it is who we will become what are our possibilities! Our truth is in our becoming. 154 35 What is reality for a physicist? Better than over a hundred different particles moving at almost the speed of light. But what really is that? For example, the case of light neither a wave nor a particle but part of both. At this point all categories become absurd. 155 Once you teach the body no more is needed. 156 A good aphorism should be a joy for a thinker, and an embarrassment to a logician. 157 There is an entelecheia in the mind and in nature, thus our problem is when do the two correspond (veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus). However, when both are in motion how can we stop it long enough for correspondence? Perhaps only the cause and the results of this can know their correspondence. 158 Every philosophy has given us a fundamentum absolutum inconcussam veritatis, that which they thought was really real but even the concept of such a thing is a denial of thinking, for even Being (Sein) is only the fundamental from a certain perspective. Denial of ontology. 159 Technology is not only here to stay, but we must also make it part of us, that is, to overcome it we must go through it. Technology is a product of humanity and as such we must straighten it out for humanity. Technology is now the precondition for revolution within Western cultures it can right now set us free. Our task is to bring out its liberation power. 160 Most people think music is innocent it is not, beware lest it slay you! 161 If we stand within the moment there is no "re" either a return or a recurrence, but rather it is only an eternal occurrence of the Same; for us to think the "re" means we stand outside the moment not within it. 162 36 If we are in the moment: no language, no subject, not I or I-ness, no Being, no history, and no self that stays. Nietzsche and Ksanikatva. 163 Time is the only thing between us and God. Or, we can say between God and us is time. 164 What is value in itself? Maybe this is the same thing as fact-in-itself. Before a question between Nietzsche and a positivist, now... 165 Is there any other way except for self-education? 166 Can anybody know where the human race is going? Well, at least one thing is certain it could be over at any moment. 167 Is it possible for a human being to experience anything that is not within space and time? Kant and Wittgenstein say, "No." Hence, no God for sure not "thing-in-itself", but what else...? Are we condemned to things caught within a space-time web? Is this the limit to thinking? Is this a "truth"? 168 Would Nietzsche agree to all philosophers and thinkers just writing in aphorisms and exegesis of aphorisms only? On second thought, perhaps Nietzsche would demand of philosophers that we don't write anything at all. Dancing and play as philosophy? 169 Existentialism was invented by professors of philosophy for their deans. 170 Needed: a phenomenological study of ending, that is, a typology and genealogy. How do we sense endings? The end of a move, a story, a text or essay, of a relationship, and of life. Both as a creator of these things and others, but also as an experimenter of them? When do we know that it is the end and not just another beginning? this is the end, I think. 171 37 Portugal as a case in point Catholic versus Communist. The great Archbishop Francisco Maria da Silva demanding, "respect for public morality and moral values!" Communism against Christianity, is that the next battle we shall have to fight for freedom? On the question of "God" they are split, but it would seem they should have the same basic moral critique of present Western cultures and their economic systems. Christianity does have a liberation message, but perhaps they are still thinking of "God's Kingdom" somewhere in Heaven or five thousand years after Christ; as such, they have hindered the unification of the people on earth who are moving toward "God's Kingdom". But who in fact do the Christians represent? The white bourgeoisie, as for the rest, they are the ones who need consoling, because they are the victims of this system. All part of the reconciliation of religious and secular consciousness, but so far all is in vain two hundred years too late. 172 Nietzsche as the final critique against all forms of religion. 173 Nietzsche felt Buddhism was centuries older than Christianity, but then where is Nietzsche? Still within our future I hope! 174 At this point in history, if God does exist we certainly have no lack of questions. 175 Every theory of time has its own political reality. 176 Can human being exist in a social reality without judging and evaluating people's behavior? It seems like it's our only way of trying to fix our place within our social relationships. Nevertheless, how would we exist if we were not involved in judging all the time? What form of life would evolve? What would be morality, then? A hint about living. 177 The movement against positivism started with Wilhelm Windelband in 1894. His student was Heinrich Rickert who taught Martin Heidegger, who in turn taught Herbert Marcuse. A line of thinkers who knew the power of both Kant and Hegel, that is, of Idealism. 178 The infinite! No rather the finite! How about neither? Let us not think like that at all, for they are metaphysical categories that have not been seen in the mountains. 38 179 Is art the highest point of life or its starting point? 180 Can philosophy both give you a report of a philosopher's thinking and also ask you to think? To engage that which is worthy of thought? 181 Poetry is the most human of all things. 182 Are you afraid of death? Well, let that pass too! My child. 183 At the point where mankind is in a most tragic situation, there we find no tragedy. The atomic tragedy has not seen Broadway. 184 Consciousness expansion a concept for the '60's only. Really came in with LBJ and went out with Nixon... 185 Theory/praxis dialectics should be a "fact" of life at least for philosophers. Historically, they have had a tendency to subjectively get lost. 186 Even the word "truth" is a joke for philosophers now; but who are these philosophers or, better yet, who do they think they are? Perhaps nothing but Sophists. 187 A philosopher's taste today is to explain in a gentle way to non-philosophers that our life has no meaning no purpose. 188 Life is not a problem hence there is no answer -no question about it. 39 189 The human condition is suffering, or intoxicated joy. 190 The ultimate in methodological consideration is to analyze the type of language we use in any investigation, that is, certain types of language already presuppose basic methodological presuppositions. Therefore, our language is part of our methodology. But the type of language can be anything from poetry to symbolic logic... 191 Nihilism as a divine way of thinking indeed, only the overman could think that way and the precondition for the overman or at least to see the rainbow and the bridges to the overman is for the state to end. With that we could affirm active Nihilism; that is, not just a weary or passive Nihilism, but rather Nihilism out of the power and strength of life, its overabundant fullness shall speak as active Nihilism. Heretofore, only incomplete Nihilism. 192 Private property privacy, both are Bourgeoisie values, which we must reject. 193 All things want to remain none have the power to will becoming and change. 194 If you need and feel that you must still believe, indeed have faith in a "fact" or a "thing-initself" or for that matter a "value-in-itself"; let that be your only desire. 195 It's strange how easily we are seduced by irrational fears. Or is it... 196 What is the new, true object for Hegel in the Phenomenology of Spirit? As there is a becoming of a new object, there is also a becoming of a new shape (Gestalten) of consciousness and with this a new kind of knowledge, too. Yet, for Hegel these objects are not tables or any things, they are rather such processes as a concrete thing and force. But what is the objectiveness of this new object? 197 40 Do we suffer life? Are we had by it? 198 Karl Marx once said, "Now it is the philosopher in whose brain the revolution begins." At this point we must ask, "Has the revolution begun?" Or have we philosophers ceased to think about the revolution? The revolution has begun however only a few are working on its realization and actualization, and there is much thinking still needed. But what Marx said points to a unification of the revolutionary and philosopher, and this is still on its way. Perhaps as a case in point, Philip Agee graduated in philosophy from Notre Dame but he had worked his way through the CIA of all things. Was he an agent or a double agent? 199 Our lives not only are meaningless, but also have no purpose. Our only question: is this "fact" our starting or ending point? Is it our first or last conclusion? 200 Is boredom our only real fear? 201 No more metaphysics! That is my metaphysics. And it should be yours as well – go for it. 202 Life is not spirit, or subject, or doer... 203 Our truth is no truth at all. Who can say that without feeling a false consciousness: yet, philosophers do. 204 Hegel is both Aristotle and Plato -from Plato, he took the concept of eidos (forms) as the Begriff, divine or otherwise; from Aristotle, he brought the forms down to earth and imbued them with the process he called entelcheia (the movement toward telos); and from Plato and the whole of tradition, he analyzed the way the entelcheia moved and called it dialectics. The Begriff is not static; rather it has its own entelcheia. Thus the entelcheia of the Begriff moves dialectically. 41 205 What is the relationship between ontology and ethics? And, furthermore, what should it be? Heidegger thinks the relationship between Being and the `ought' or `value' is one which concludes the end of metaphysics. However, it started with Plato and the Good (agathon), then to Kant and Fichte, and with Nietzsche it reached full power. For Heidegger, Nietzsche is of course the last metaphysician. Well, let us for a moment engage in metaphysics and determine what the relationship between ethics and ontology is. Everything that comes into existence and has essence does so through the Being of beings; hence, all things that ought to exist have to exist through the Being -have to be thought through the horizon of Being. The relationship correctly analyzed is really between Thought and Being, since all things that ought to exist have to first be thought of. Those things which ought to be as soon as they exist no longer are something which ought to be, rather they have the status of being; thus the ought must come out of our ability to think possibilities within the very heart of Being. So from the phenomenological phenomena of the `understanding structure' which projects any possibilities at all, we have to judge which possibilities ought to exist and which ones should not. It is from the understanding of different possibilities that we can critique what does exist now, for example, the family system, the state, human relations, alienation of the working force, etc. We know what can and should exist. 206 All ontologies have an explicit ethics; hence all ethical theories are grounded by ontological presuppositions. 207 Some people wish to be human, but most cannot. 208 We must walk upon a new day my brothers. 209 Pain that hurts is always emotional. 210 Perhaps we should give metaphysics one more try. But which one should we use Nietzschean , Hegelian, or Schellingian? Could we create a new metaphysic one that would be a complete metaphysic of reality? Our first step will be decided on the systemquestion. At this point the Hegelian metaphysic is obviously the most powerful, for example, Laos just yesterday. Metaphysics has lasted this long, why not see if we can transform that. The one-foot beyond life beyond death, shall not be called holy. 42 211 The only difference between experiences is whether once was enough or not as the case maybe. 212 Was Vietnam won or lost? Both. Losing in this case may have been a good thing in the historical record. But that does not mean it was worth the lives that were lost. 213 Women often forget the universal and men never will understand their own emotions, but yet we have men that are women and women that are men. Physical typologies never make sense only for appearance and custom. 214 Is the fundamental question of ontology the relationship between Being and Nothing, or between Being and Time? Some hints about the relation between Time and Nothing. 215 The ontological task Man Time Nothing Being! 216 The science of faith Theology, or the art of dreaming. 217 Stress and strain are the effects of contradictions, hence of negativity and living. Maybe too much living. 218 Humanity barely an "Ideal", so far still in vain. 219 Arche now only thought in terms of cause and effect. Even the Greeks had scientism. A joke for Greeks. 220 43 I cannot help it that since high school I have not had meaning. It grew until I read Camus, and when I finally reached his height I knew there was no way back. Aristotle said, "For through astonishment men have begun to philosophize both in our times and at the beginning." The beginning of philosophy is astonishment (thaumazein), for the Greeks at least. But my beginning was with Angst, out of the need to overcome my dread and the meaninglessness of my life -yes, my child, that is now our starting point and perhaps it will be our end, too. Can we now see the light? 221 "About life" is that your question: there is only one thing I can say "about life" we will be the last to know. 222 When philosophers talk about reason and rationality, I always wonder at their longing for God. And yet, they always talk about the death of God and the proof for God's existence. Little do they know of the shadow of God, and their reality is always guaranteed by God, too. 223 From Johann Gutenberg to Philo T. Farnsworth... What can be next? 224 Why must we always die to live for a moment? 225 To move from the particular to the universal is the task of thinking, but the absolute unity of the two only happens in love, and politics. This is part of the reason why sex is so often linked with political power. 226 A philosophy of the future a keynote for all post-Hegelian philosophy. 227 Perhaps philosophers having nothing to say...if so please don't call them philosophers. 228 In normal conversation how does one know that a discussion on a particular subject is over and finished? A question about meaning and, strangely, embodiment too. 44 229 Our bodies a "fact"; our condition, mortals starting point, a first assumption. 230 History speaks less and less to America, for as a new beginning and a fresh start, it lacks history; and hence, it really does not need history. Nevertheless, for we who have begun the task of developing a philosophy of the future and, hence, "for it" too, we have begun to know the problem and riddle of history, both in philosophy as such and human history, too; that is, world class history. 231 A point and note: on tragedy. At the subjective level or even at the objective what tragedy is is when these two levels run contrary to each other. But of course tragedy is more than this... 232 Even Americans are still sun-worshippers. 233 What would our experience be like if the universal and the particular were fused for more than a few tremendous moments? A time of no time...no past, no future... 234 Do we need a new beginning for philosophy? So far we had an absolute beginning and lost it; now it is time for a correct but not an absolute beginning. Not language again, please. 235 A noble goal. Understanding - 236 Once religion was the truth and sun for mankind; now we will revolve around our own truth ourselves. 237 45 C. G. Jung was my beginning in high school my first transformation past science, and Karl Marx was my second; strangely enough, the problem of death became my third. You can guess some of the rest of my history, but the truth was never the goal. 238 Hegel once said, "I claim that truth finds the element of its existence only in the Begriff." Hence, I can say truth is the Begriff and the Begriff is the truth. This reaches deep into Hegel's head. 239 What is the purpose of studying humanity? Is it to understand it and hence to overcome it or just to control it? Philosophers versus politicians. 240 An ethical system can never be used for human existence is in fact non-systematic, regardless of how many attempts there are to make life systematic. A note: system as ideal. Can any absolute system still show freedom within its very core? 241 Reason is only a problem and a question for the irrational. 242 Can a system in philosophy have room for non-representational thinking? Answer: Yes, but only for the creator of that system. What kind of thinking is system thinking like Hegelian notional thinking? 243 The only things which need explanation are those which are in the process of changing. 244 Love is affected by economic relationships more than by truth. 245 Not only is God dead but the devil died with him, and yet there is no concept of modern tragedy. 246 46 Most people will do anything for the right amount of money. A truth I cannot affirm! 247 God be with you. As if He could know anything about your life. God is pure absolute Love but He has no power. What kind of theology is that? Do you like theology or just the feeling of faith. 248 Nagarjuna's philosophy goes beyond Buddha's like Kant's transformation of Plato. And yet, who would think of the relationship between Nagarjuna and Kant. The East still remains hidden. 249 A goal: to have no goal or goals. That is, the total affirmation of no purpose no direction. I ask you, my child, "Is that our ideal, our imperative, or is it life's condition?" 250 11[283] Jesus war ein grosser Egoist. F. Nietzsche 251 Ousia should not be thought of as substance, rather as beingness (Seindheit). A question: What is the meaning of the term Beingness (Seinheit) within this context? 252 A creator always has the feeling of enjoyment as long as he or she creates out of one self not out of external necessity. 253 Perhaps it is language not thinking which makes dynamic things static. 254 The transformation of our subjectivity into objectivity that is called self-reflection. 255 The best book is one that leads us beyond all books, namely to our life. 47 256 If human existence had a goal I would have already reached it. Hence, there is no goal to existence. 257 If God could see us now, He would say, "The Devil made me do it!" 258 Our first step. Critique all givens, all assumptions and presuppositions, before one applies anything. Along these same lines be sure and know the limits of your method and also its origin. 259 Who really knows why we have wars? Answer: Marxists, since they have the most complete theory of history. 260 Who gave you, my brothers, the right to determine how long a second is? For students. Is time like money just an idea even though it feels real to us? 261 Can you love without necessity, without destiny? What is love if it doesn't matter who you are in love with, if there is no necessity to it? This must be a question for anybody who has been in love before, since we all know that marriages are made in "heaven". Strange how doubt plays a role in marriage and in a relationship that one feels for one's love, because part of the doubt is wrapped up in the question of necessity. But, my child, ask yourself the question, "Can love be only for awhile?" And with that, everyone knows of the power of an old flame. The contra movement between one's subjective and the objective structure of the family and social relationships that power and movement is now in full swing. A note about divorce. Why are they so common now? 262 Even butterflies know life's truth... 263 Nihilism has not been refuted, and that is a truth which we cannot bare. 48 264 Truth is a function of courage and strength! 265 "Change". That, my friend, is a word that one can use for "reality." But who can affirm that who knows it? Perhaps only "God" really knows about "reality." 266 Can we cry over joy lost? At first we feel like we should, but then reason takes over and we realize that all joy has suffering within. A Buddhist joy. Does that bother you? 267 Humanity is a movement against cosmic entropy. 268 The difference between myself and most politicians is a simple one. They want to be president and I am, like Nietzsche, am prepared to rule the world. 269 A theological problem. We killed God but forgot the Devil. 270 God must die before the overman is to live. A thesis of Zarathustra's a teaching. 271 First of all the gods she devised Love. Parmenides. 272 A thinker who knows language knows too much. 273 Socrates understood that poets "are interpreters of the gods" (hermenes eisin to theon), yet with the death of God and all the gods, what now is their task: to express our longing only. 274 49 China is the beginning of a new movement of the world-spirit (Weltgeist). We must not forget that only a few philosophers have had their fingers on the world-spirit. However, most of them only felt its direction in the future; hence they never knew their own 'time'. 275 Our thinking should have a vigorous fragrance, like a wheat field on a summer's night. (1875) F. Nietzsche 276 Where do we get the sense for a priori-ness in philosophy? 277 It is hard for most of us, but we are speechless before death. Talk always becomes idle talk before death, because it is a phenomenon which completely overcomes an inauthentic response. Nothing matches its depth or power. Death is neither morbid nor joyful; plainly it transcends all human emotions all human responses. 278 Become like children boy, who thought that up. Perhaps one who was indeed a child? 279 Man is the moment! 280 I write not only to be heard but also to be embodied. The body must learn its own truths through itself. 281 I worry about my indifference to apathy. No distress is growing distress within. 282 Rules for the Direction of the Mind, by Descartes, number four: There is need of a method for finding out the truth. Or to rephrase it, "no truth without method". Yet we are of the age that must try to live without the truth correctness, yes, but no truth. Surely we need a method to do philosophy but even this is hotly denied in some cases. However, who today is in search for a method. Also a French man. 50 283 The denial of teleology is the first step to the understanding of the thought of the eternal return of the Same. Yet, who can do this in their practical life? Just try to think of a nonteleological world there is movement and progress, but it has no purpose, no direction, no telos that is, dysteleology. 284 The questions of system and method are the main questions between Hegel and Heidegger. First instance: a system needs a starting point and Heidegger has only a starting question. Hegel, of course, starts with the Begriff. 285 For Hegel, the gods are divine Notions. 286 As humans, our first goal is either to deny or affirm the second law of thermodynamics. That is, to go against or with chaos (entropy). However, there is no doubt about the final outcome of all such attempts. 287 What is philosophy without universals? And yet that seems to be the position analytic philosophy is in. Perhaps universals are just not given at least to analytic thinkers. 288 You must always keep in mind that the mind does not exist everyone knows that. 289 The subject neither goes out to the object nor does the object go into the subject. 290 It is not necessary to have necessity. That is, neither life nor love has necessity in a late civil society; it looks like reason has lost all of its authority, too. Indeed, modern theories of the "life of reason" and so on and so on, have a real lack of authority; and by that I mean they are not irrational, but just misleading us about rationality. 291 Can we ask for reasons to be rational? Is that not already believing in rational standards? Reason must or must not have survival value for a certain form of life As for this epoch let 51 us say, "they worry about being rational in their arguments, meanwhile the whole is false and the universal structures become more and more irrational." 292 Nietzsche is not a prophet but he does speak from the mountain peaks; nevertheless, "non legor, non legar". The art of reading has been lost anyway... 293 Some philosophers start with aphorisms; and other philosophers start their life with them. In fact, some never get to them and some aphorisms are just banal, which sometimes is not too surprising. I have started here, you may want to start else where – let the thinking begin. 294 For both phenomenologist and analytic philosophers, the "given" is a-historical, perhaps an attempt at the eternal or just "sense" data. 295 Nothing is eternal! Nothing is eternal! Of course Nothing's relation to man is not eternal because man [himself] is not eternal; hence, we have no eternal truth without proving that man has already existed and will exist for eternity (cf. Sein und Zeit section 44c). Nothing's relation to mortals is as eternal as human death. 296 There is nothing heavier than Nothing. 297 What are the phenomenological phenomena of Dasein that are indeed revealing Nothing (Nichts) rather than Dasein's openness to Being (Sein)? A question for the author of Being and Time, that is, for the guru of Todtnauberg in Baden, Black Forest. 298 Can we give "common sense" reason for rejecting "common sense" as a consciousness shape ( think of Hegel)? Perhaps it is a joy just to be at the level of "common sense". 52 299. A new book: The Joy of Nothing, the substance is the same as the Wisdom of Spiro T. Agnew, but this time they did not even bother with page numbers. Where is the truth now? 300 Thinking most of the time does not know how close it runs to the surface. Hence, its goal is to bury itself in the depths. 301 The abyss is a natural extension beyond nihilism, but our experience of the abyss is an extension into the Nothingness that lies at the heart of our Being. 302 Really, power means power over mediation and eventually over time itself. 303 How does one in practice transcend incomplete Nihilism? First step: negation of the Ego, Self, subject history, and goals (finite or otherwise). 304 Most of the time philosophers have a hard time reading aphorisms, because they usually want ideas on only their pet subjects and a strong aphorism reaches out to grasp the whole world. The rigid mind also has a hard time changing subjects quickly, which is a precondition for aphorism readers and that is a pre-condition that few philosophers possess. 305 Why would Kant want to know the "Thing-in-itself"? Since the "Thing-in-itself" already knows Kant. 306 Is God in search of man or is man in search of God? Or perhaps neither... 307 Our philosophical longing is for both a philosophy of the future and a philosophy for the future; hence Feuerbach and Nietzsche. That is, a Hegelian system that can go through the fiery brook of Nietzsche's power. 308 Does it matter whether the will-to-power is the first or last fact that we come to? Pick your poison. 309 53 An art work is nothing to an artist, in the same way a philosophical work is nothing to a thinker. 310 Dusk is a natural time to stop and reflect on the experiences of the day, hence a lot of philosophy was written at dusk whereas it should have been written and thought of at dawn. 311 There is nothing worse than people who read philosophy, but who never think philosophical thoughts who, indeed, never really seek the truth among all the philosophical works they read. Rather for them even truth is met with a little bit of embarrassment. 312 It is of the highest importance that our thinking has real human life content, yes and by that I mean it is in line with a possible human experience that makes sense to the present consciousness of the world-spirit. Somehow it has to be in line with common sense, or otherwise philosophers will end up down in Alice's Wonderland. Well, this content is needed otherwise philosophers will spin on the form of the content, that is, the mind's own structure hence a spinning which becomes a mere subjective reporting of an inner whirling of categories. 313 Idein, or the Greek concept for how one sees the truth, but without eyes... 314 Things never appear to be what they really are; yet there is nothing behind the appearances. 315 Butterflies know more about beauty than philosophers! 316 There is neither a "why" nor a "what" for philosophy now. What I mean by this is: neither reasons nor reality (existence); only an interpretation from which one can see both "whys" and "whats". Nevertheless, these are still interpretations of what is going on. 317 Can Heidegger give us an understanding of social change? That is, ontology for processes with in cultures. Heidegger certainly has given us a new understanding of man (Dasein) but is that from his ontological power or did it just happen; that is, is there in fact a connection between his quest for the meaning (Sinn) of Being and his power with regard to man? 318 54 Who today can really forge and explore a question mark? I think only Heidegger and he does it mostly for his students. 319 I think, therefore I am. This certainly is not certain: I think, I think, therefore I am, or I think therefore I am I think. 320 La bete philosophe or the non-sensuous, that is a non-sexual one, at least until Fichte, 321 For me: pereat mundus, fiat philosophia, fiat philosophus, fiam! Boy, where does that come from? 322 If existence did not exist, I would have to create it. 323 The overman lives in the midst of the eternal return of the Same as a new 'time'. 324 Nietzsche knew the power of Hölderlin! So did Heidegger, for that matter. 325 Power is the only thing that counts for politics. Mao knew this better than any one before. 326 Nietzsche was the first doctor of civilization, and from this he knew what must be cut out to save it; namely, which are non-life-seeking (no will-to-life) and are indeed a will-tonothingness. These values are mostly found in Religion and Philosophy, perhaps because they usually talk a good line. 327 Cultural evolution is a theory in search of metaphysics; it wants to give a general explanation (in terms of reasons) for cultural variation through time. A system of statements that would account for cultural variations; similar to biological evolution but not the same. 328 Aristotle never found a number in nature, which is one thing that stopped him from becoming another Plato. 55 329 Soviet philosophers seem to think there could be one way to the truth. I, for one, think that could be true. But that presupposes that philosophers are indeed in search of the truth; some of them do not have the courage even to hunt and look for the truth and that is still miles from affirming the truth. 330 The time for new social relations is now lost. People and that is, even young people are no longer forging new kinds of social relations. The objective social goal has again become merely subjective, whether it hurts or gives pleasure that is now our only concern. Once, my brothers and sisters, it was different. Let's hope against all hope that day will once again be seen. 331 Our last fact, our last block, our last truth the body! A phenomenologist speaks. 332 Hume is only your perception, my friend self, no existence, and no emotions, in fact not human... 333 Human beings need two seemingly contradictory things at the same time one is to open themselves up to people and share their inner experiences, and the other is to be closed; that is, to keep part of their life complete to themselves. 334 Is there anything more than just moral phenomena? 335 Thought is a shadow out of time. 336 The loss of reason appears first in social relations, but it first exists at the level of the universal. Are we or aren't we rational? That question is no longer a rational question; we are 50 years beyond that. 337 56 "Stay with appearance, my brothers" or how not to think. 338 The 'ought' has no place in politics today! As for that matter, neither do people. 339 A genius is someone who is a configuration of opposite forces and who does justice to them. 340 A beautiful aphorism tries to leap out of time, knowing, of course it never can! 341 What would Kant contrast "pure" reason to? Impurity as a category. 342 Why do people nauseate me so much? Why in general do people sometimes completely sicken me? 343 Friends soon forget and lovers even sooner. 344 Descartes is still a 'substance' thinker; only the subject, instead of just being pure though, becomes an object or 'substance'. Hence, the subject and the object or world are still within a substance theory. There is thinking; everything wills like the "I" and "am" parts are just added on from a substance approach to metaphysics. For there is indeed neither 'substance' nor anything like 'essence' either. 345 "Stop it"; that is what philosophers throw in the face of reality. 346 Who ever knows where the future will be has a good chance of making sure it gets there, too. 347 57 What does it in the end mean to be a radical? Can you for instance be a Humean and be consistent with your philosophy, and at the same time be a radical? From what happened in the 60's, the answer now shows forth: Yes, but you can change overnight into a reactionary, because you are not committed to a method that will get you there. You will need a method that can bring your radicalism out of history; that is, you need a philosophy of history. This is only apparent to a few philosophers. And some not at all, hence let these sleepers drop away. 348 A test question: should we attain bliss by denying the chaos of life and its suffering, or rather, by affirming the chaos of life, realize bliss through human joy? I never waste my strength on questions that are really not questions, for in fact we will have to do both to know truth. 349 Contrary to what Marcuse thinks there is no critical spirit without spirit, and for now there is no spirit. 350 The housewife's maxim: "I must get into something". 351 A playful touching of seriousness all too heavy. 352 Human moods are a tuning into Nature, and yet Nature, too, sometimes tunes into us. Indeed, Nature knows us. 353 It doesn't matter whether one has to overcome a small or a large abyss, just don't let the abyss stare too long into you, my brother. Consequence: abyss-out. 354 Why, in general, do philosophers want to live in another world one that is outside or beyond this one? A whole realm of things-in-themselves. Not this life please! Good God, no! I want another place to dwell. Enough of this! Let us get back to earth and home. 355 58 We shall one day judge philosophers only on the grounds of how close they were to the Greeks. But this will be a non-moral critique against them, contrary to most critiques. 356 System? Only Nietzsche and Hegel understood this question mark. 357 There is reason in history; but what most of us forget is there is also unreason, or insanity, too. 358 Open up the human abyss and look in, and see if you, my children, are not pulled in. 359 The future is the only thing that speaks to a thinker, for what is the past to us now nothing. 360 Hegel's logic is not ontology, for in fact it is at a higher level than mere Being (Seyn). 361 Defining concepts does not necessarily lead to any reality. What after all is our goal: To be an immaculate speaker? 362 What is the "essence' of man? Is that your question? Well I shall tell you time. 363 Study and the enquiry after truth, hath very often only this effect, that it maketh us know experimentally how ignorant we are by nature. 364 Nietzsche's followers! They have yet to find him, and perhaps we shall never lose him either. 365 We need a cosmic solution... 59 366 Tragedy can no longer speak to the cosmic nature of the tragedy we have given mankind. Nietzsche was the first one to realize that the World was going to go through World Wars, but he did not know how tragic it was to be. However, Nietzsche was indeed born posthumously. 367 . . . sub specie Spinozae. 368 In the end maybe not much is said only a sign of life a sign which goes unread. 369 Hyperion or The Hermit in Greece as the pre-condition for reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Orange knack Osteen! 370 Abstract thinking is laborious for many people for me, on good days, a celebration and intoxication. 371 Even with all the days that Nietzsche was sick, he, in fact, had too many good days. 372 Loneliness, what does this mean to people with ears that have been transformed just this: not being able to speak to others about that which is most important to one to speak out of one's inner life. 373 No more revaluation of values transvaluation is our first signpost. 374 What is the value of values? I am afraid we shall hear some Nietzschean laughter over that one. 375 To put it all in a nutshell, why this eagerness to live in limbs that are destined to rot? 60 376 Why life rather than not death? 377 Thought is a song of our earthly dwelling As a dream which moves reality As the dew in the grass As an exploding moment As thinking thinking itself. 378 Thought is the wind before Being As a reaching into the nearness As a crystal beauty shining forth As a sail for pure thinking As a sound of Nothingness nearing. 379 Thought's power grows within the will willing As a will to move As a will to will As a will to creation As a will to life. 380 Thought breaks into Being As Being into time As Nothing into Being As reality into the future As time into our dwelling. 381 Thought is not ontic Nor dreaming Nor fantasizing Nor static 61 Nor perception. 382 Like the joy of releasement Like the living in the spring Like the love of mortals Like the butterfly's motion Thought is... 383 Like the absolute at work Like joy's unfolding Like the blissful moments of stillness Like Being's silence Thought is... 384 There is no difference There is no identity There is nothing in between There is nothing indeed That thought is not. 385 There is a difference There is an absolute becoming There is Being There is a Sameness Which thought is 386 It speaks of Silence It grows with gratitude It is a saying of serenity It is a path of man Thought. 387 62 For Hegel what is the relation between Being and Nothing and the Begriff and Spirit? The former is a textual question; whereas the latter speaks to the whole system, in fact, one which Hegel never though about he assumed a certain relationship. 388 Can we have a system that can contain freedom? This question Heidegger asked Schelling, because I think only Hegel has the answer. 389 How can we ever say anything without considering everything first? 390 Power also needs money. 391 This is either a joy or a heavy burden on our shoulders. A note for those who can never affirm "both... and ..." 392 We must have intuition of reason in the world or in our minds; but with this, we see the joke involved intuition is a low level of comprehension. We must know the reasonable with the highest level of comprehension reason. 393 Can we ever hope to do a-historical phenomenology of human experiences? I hope not, maybe it's silly to even try. 394 The only people who should write are those who absolutely must who cannot live without writing; for, as it is, we have too many books for those who indeed are too profound. 395 What has forbidden us to tell the truth laughing? Horace. 396 Overman? Who can read that question mark without feeling sadness and laughter? 63 397 Science should never be confused with technology. Nevertheless, we must ask what the value of both science and technology is, for this animal that seems to have knowledge of the world. Our lost wisdom shows itself first through our lack of understanding of the power of technology, which perhaps only the scientist can re-interpret for us. Our God lost: science. 398 Schopenhauer thinks that tragedy leads to the resignation of life Nietzsche contra him: rather, it is the ideal of tragedy as the affirmation of living spirit, in fact as Dionysian. This, my anti-Greek dwarf, is Nietzsche as his height. No dreamer speaks here. 399 The greatest affront to the individual as a private, unique member of society is school. 400 If everyone looks to us as irrational, it might be because we, too, are irrational. 401 Who can say anything about the Cosmos other than the creator of it? And the creator perhaps is no longer with us. It takes a lot to start creation. 402 Love changes our eyes to the world... From: A noonday ship at sea 403 Lovers come and go, but a friend never leaves. 404 Nietzsche could smell decadence with his nose. 405 Let us take the case of Socrates for a moment or the one who will die for the state's rights over the individual. Can one in fact deduce from this famous case that the Greeks did indeed believe in capital punishment, or is it rather that they never thought of Socrates as a 64 Greek? Let us even ask Socrates a question: was the Greek government de facto or de jure? If it was only de facto, then how can Socrates believe they had a legal right to sentence him? 406 A problem between a philosopher and a thinker, or rather the difference between the two: a philosopher works and sweats over creating and producing ideas (the white sheets stares at him/her or the computer screen), whereas a thinker just flows. Let is all happen. 407 Whoever designed the early development of humans should be taken to court at the very least. 408 Can philosophers ever know the worldview of natural consciousness? Or for that matter can a worker in a factory know his existence? A rubric for thought. 409 Fact: philosophers who want to be the embodiment of common sense (e.g., the greatest case 'G. E. Moore'), they do because they are the most abstract of men, less than all toohuman; in fact, just a little human or even hardly human in the end because there is no blood in their bodies. 410 I am nothing less than a genius and I make no bones about it why should I keep it a secret? 411 Aphorisms either go to the depths or go nowhere at all. 412 Indeed, not everything we say is the truth, for sometimes we tell lies just to see what people will say, both in everyday life and as philosophers. 413 65 Is Hegel's Enzyklopädie a System of aphorisms? Is that even a possibility? What does it mean to create a System of aphorisms? Is that another example of a contradictio in adjecto? Answer: this is a new way of looking at Hegel's so-called absolute system. 414 Nietzsche's basic problem: decadence! Not morality, not the overman, not the transvaluation of values, not the eternal return of the Same as time, not the nature or the future of philosophy, not the Greeks, not Schopenhauer, not resentment, not the death of God, not revenge; rather these follow from his grappling with the fundamental question mark of "decadence". 415 Indeed, why is it that you must understand reality? A question for the one who lives at the end of his eyeballs the positivist. 416 My children? In another breath is beyond even Oneness. 417 Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about. Oscar Wilde. 418 Who is the whole other? How can we transcend ourselves to find the other, to go out to the other? A confused one. 419 For Heidegger, is the history of Nothing related to expropriation? Is his thinking great enough to run with the power of that question, could he answer it? Strangely enough, I don't think these are really questions, for appropriation and expropriation are not the same as Being and Nothing. They are, rather, the relationship between man and Being-NothingTime. And yet, expropriation is related to Nothing, but that relationship has only now become a matter for thought, hence it must go unnamed. 420 Beauty only passes in perception... 66 421 Insanity is always a part of our sanity, but why does it break out in some and not others, why does it seem so close to us everyday? Somehow it became part of both Nietzsche's and Hölderlin's life, they became like Tantalus of old, all-too-much from the gods Apollo had struck them with full force. 422 The decay of Religion is also the decay of the state (March 1878). With this Nietzsche speaks to the relationship between him and Marx. It is of some note that even Camus places Nietzsche infinitely higher than Marx as a philosopher; and yet, we must always think of them together. Was Marx a philosopher or something more and at the same time different than a mere philosopher? 423 Those who have used this method before: Francois de La Rochefoucauld, F. W. J. Schelling, L. Feuerbach, A. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, M. Horkheimer... 424 Spinoza was the first one to critique the mere "Ideal" of teleology. But that critique was carried through completely by Nietzsche. In their own way, only Hegel and Nietzsche understood the power of Spinoza. 425 Hegel is by far the greatest causa sui in the history of philosophy. 426 What kinds of air do church-goers breath? 427 Most things in education today are neither true nor false, for they are rather just plain and simple nonsense. 428 Melancholy, or the mood of the valley. 429 God is both too gross an answer and too gross a question mark. 67 430 Please, forgive my youth! We are all old and young. 431 Why is it that by the Delphic saying, "Gnoti seauton" (know yourself), everyone thinks of psychology and not the self-education through history of consciousness? 432 Readers of aphorisms must be able to move from one level of concreteness to another easily. Otherwise they will get burnt out trying to get to the end. 433 The length of an aphorism is determined by the power of its creator; that means, it could go both ways either a longer or a shorter one. For, as you all know, it's hard to be short and powerful, yet at the same time you must not be incomplete. A problem for aphorist flyers. 434 Needed: a typology of aphorisms, moral maxims, almost-poetry, fictitious situations, ontological epigrams, dreams, definitions, questions of ambiguity, either/or questions, sayings, double-meaning statements with opposite meanings, mottos... 435 Without the small things in life, there would be no life at all. 436 The problem of categories and their meanings is now the problem of language. 437 Needed: a history of the anti-epistemology movement. It would start with F.W.J. Schelling; also, the explanation for the rise of epistemology. 438 Karl Marx never fully understood Hegel's Science of Logic, hence neither the dialectics too. 439 68 To understand Marx or Hegel without their methodology is OK, but for them to have created their systems of philosophy without a method would be absurd. If you merely want to re-present their system or the content of their philosophy – you do not need to know anything about "method," but if you apply their thinking and power, in fact, if you want a little praxis, then their method is what is the most important! Social scientists are always talking about taking Marx without the mystical Hegelian dialectics and though it may sound funny, Marx always wants to use the dialectic of Hegel, but not the mystical part (Notional dialectics). Being that the Notion (Begriff) is divine as part of the mind of God before creation. Yet we still need to know how dialectics applies to our late civil society context as that knowledge may be used for yet an easy transition to our future world consciousness. A truth for our Sunday and Monday revolutionaries. Thoughts for a time past. 440 Beauty is always class beauty. 441 I have always dreamed of a political consciousness for the people yet perhaps Marx and Engel were wrong in making the working class everything, for, without reason, they remain a mere manipulated class. 442 The truth is not just true but also painful. 443 Our quest: to remember and experience timeless moments – 'eternity' our only goal. A joy for those timeless ones. 444. It is not sin that counts but rather only how much guilt it produces; nevertheless, do not forget that sin is a necessary condition for guilt and hence we can go backward from guilt to sin to desire and our passion for anxiety and a needful super stimulation of life. That is, namely a relative absolute standard of evil and goodness. Absolute, insofar as we know what the standard is, but relative, insofar as we practice it. 445 Strangers lost in a concrete world... this says it all. 69 446 What is knowledge or even self-knowledge used for today? Or knowledge of wisdom and wise deeds? No one has those answers perhaps no one needs those answers in these times. A question for a few wise people. 447 Lost and forgotten the beginning. A story re-created and told anew. 448 Love alone can solve the mystery of immortality for you. --L. Feuerbach. 449 What is the meaning of "meaning" or the life of "life" and the value of "value"? Examples of a very special kind of question. What is the 'whatness' of a what-question or how did hows get started or even why, whys? 450 The transcendental or synthetic unity of apperception (cf. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason B 134). OK, but where does the term "apperception" come from? Answer: Leibniz's Principles of Nature and of Grace, Based on Reason. 451 Kant's method is not only transcendental but also architectonic (i.e., Kant is a system thinker). What you thought Kant was trying to "fix" the natural sciences. 452 Feuerbach was the greatest philosopher right after Hegel for sure Marx thought this too, but and yet, no system and no question of Wissenschaft (science in general) hence what kind of Hegelian was Feuerbach? As Hegelians Feuerbach, Marx, and Søren Kierkegaard (compare Lukács) are all great Hegelians and yet as philosophers the differences speak. 453 We all remain enigmas for ourselves. A muse by man. 454 70 Melancholy knows no other truth and is not worried by history. 455 A Kierkegaardian leap goes from no where to no where whereas Nietzsche wants to leap from man to overman from a man next to God to man-God (man as God). 456 A small child can teach a henologist and a cosmologist a thing or two about joy. 457 A note on nineteenth-century philosophy. S.K. contra A.S. Where do these thinkers fit into the essential movement of philosophy during the nineteenth century? Can we even mention their two names together Søren Kierkegaard and Arthur Schopenhauer? They have some very special philosophical problems and themes, which in other times would seem not be philosophy at all. 458 A time where there is no time or space, in fact, a time lost to time, a beginning of eternity our beginning too. 459 Philosophers must be self-conscious of their ideas! 460 Nature is never just in this world, for it includes the entire universe. However, God was not just playing with dice when the creation of the universe began to know nature is to know God. Does this sound strange to your ears? Remain faithful to the earth my brothers! Must we not also think of the rest of the universe? A change not in the actual world but in the subject, that is, our world and universe but not divine or holy or even for that matter a moral purpose. 461 We are nothing and we should be everything! The proletariat. 462 From what I smell we must have used our nose a lot during prehistory. 71 463 Is the nature of work, as such, anything which can be understood by metaphysics? Hence, two criteria follow: one, against the misunderstanding of persons and personhood (i.e., the nature of mortals and their relationship to the earth) and, second, the misunderstanding of things and thinghood, plus the emphasis on epistemology. Let me now say just this: Aristotle and Hegel are beyond epistemology insofar as they both speak to the matters themselves, not just for the preconditions for speaking or knowing, but rather to things directly. So don't forget, my friends, as antimetaphysical searchers we must know and smell those metaphysical realms inside and out. 464 Our question mark: the limits and bounds of metaphysics. We need more thinkers who can read that question mark and feel its depth. 465 Why do we no longer know the movement of world history? Is it because no one wants to say such ugly things – that it's too scary for us? Where is the movement and direction within world history? Only the Marxist knows? Or only the Marxist knows! 466 The examined life and the unexamined perhaps are not worth living, for who is sure that any life is worth living through; in fact the longer one examines life, the less one thinks that it is worth living. But what was life for the Greeks? This question haunted Goethe, Hölderlin, Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche and it still haunts us today. 467 I shall give to my children the complete removal of sin from your world, and hence call myself mortal. 468 We shall always be condemned to kill the spirit of that which we love the most! A philosopher's burden. 469 Antipolitical is no longer a possible concept today...perhaps it never was. 470 72 Liberation is nothing less than an attempt at freedom reason too. 471 Why did a novel like Goethe's Werther have such an impact on all of Europe? And with that strange motto added in later editions, "Be a man, and do not follow me." Should we say this again or did you get "it" finally? 472 The eternal return of the Same or the turning point in history. Did Nietzsche really believe that? No more eternity! An eternal saying for mortals dwelling on this earth the first fact and precondition for humanity. Our turning point... 473 Poetry is the expression of a different relationship toward the world, different than we normally in everydayness have had toward our dwelling on earth. We are attuned and in a different harmonic to ourselves and to the kind of earthly dwellers we are; hence, poetry is a state of being. 474 The final truth was not that science became dominant; it was, rather, the methodology of science that won even over the social sciences too. Hence, our main point we need two different methods for two different phenomena. Phenomenology had the right beginning, but we had to re-think what is the nature and meaning of "phenomena." Plus we run into the old questions of ontology, such as universal/particular, essence/existence, infinite/finite, consciousness/objects of consciousness, reality/appearance, subjectivity/objectivity, etc. So, in the meantime, we lost the whole idea of a science of phenomena. 475 Poetry should reach Reach for eternity My children Loosen its deathly grip. 476 Recycle and rephrase in order to balance the new beginning OK. Prime ministers and their decadence. 477 73 Why the decline of the West rather the rise of the East? But how did the West come to power and dominance? Was it just technology and science? For its power is violent and forceful and comes from being able to change the world. 478 Love is the merging of two people out of necessity; but it is not external rather internal necessity and need. It is nothing but an attempt at absolute identity within an absolute difference. 479 How can I counsel anyone about reading aphorisms? Some must be read in order and others should not be read at all; plus some have to be understood within the context of the whole work. And of course some are just examples well-formulated, but not part of the truth, that is, an experiment within the form of the aphorism. Sometimes, it's best to let those who can think go ahead and figure out their own way. My truth is just a mention. 480 What is the reality or existence status of time? Is it real or not? Or even the old question about space and time. Not really questions at all. 481 Our only real hope is the pure affirmation of all the infinite possibilities as our own can our will affirm this? That is, the affirmation of all and any life processes. Meta aletheia and agathon! 482 Beware all my children lest language slay you become neither a poet nor a philosopher, in the end only an unreal trap, a nowhere trip. 483 This aphorism deleted on historical note. I should mention that everything else will stand the test of time and cross over into the nuggets of "eternity". 484 The main stick-in-the-mud so far concerning any theory for the social sciences is the problem of an analysis which is able to move from one level to the next, from one level of concreteness to the next, from one kind of social phenomenon to another, from moral phenomena in children to world-history. 74 485 It seems as though our only path is through beginnings! 486 Life is neither simple nor complex it is rather more of the same. Meant for the living. 487 Death touches each and every one of us, in our inner Being where it counts! 488 Some of us think for others and some for ourselves I would rather be the latter, but I am both. 489 Do you want a real solution to the enigma of life or simple one that will do for the moment? A question for everyone and no one. A question for a Nietzschean. A question that will not last. 490 No afterlife, no soul, no gods, no God, no teleology, no progress, no eternity, no Absolute, no Spirit, no eternal universals, no Being, no ground, no essence, no subject, no object, no state, no capitalism, no master, no hope, no answers, no goals, no purpose the Great Yes! 491 Life is a missliche Sache: I have determined to spend it in reflecting on it. --A. Schopenhauer to C.M. Wieland 492 Let us think about something more pleasant, said the dwarf to the thoughtful one as they both had one foot beyond life. 493 What can we say today about the deaths of Giordano Bruno and Lucilio Vanini? Perhaps only a banal saying, you came too early my brothers! Or like Socrates and Sir Thomas More you die for your love of truth. Indeed, a truth that is beyond us today. 75 494 Primum vivere, deinde philosophari! A truth and a motto a maxim for all philosophers, but not for thinkers they know this and more. 495 Our mooding is our way of Being... 496 At what point does language finally break, and reveal its truth? Nevertheless, even to name the essential nature of language, remains beyond us; hence a mystery at bottom. 497 The alpha and omega of all philosophy is freedom... --F.W.J. Schelling to Hegel. Freedom is only a partial answer – because the real truth to philosophy is the radical transformation of the very nature of philosophy itself. 498 Kant seems to have thought that everyone should have a philosophical system but because someone else's system would be only subjective and historical knowledge for us we can only learn how to philosophize not really philosophy as such (system of all philosophical Knowledge!). But Kant did understand the importance of the system-question; however, he was confused about how his own philosophy was related to a system in general. Nevertheless, Kant and Spinoza became the guiding light for Idealism's battle cry philosophy as system. A goal within creative forces. 499 Revolution Freedom Lifefulnessing 500 Art Being-truthing Joy 501 Self-sameness Objectiveness Clouds 502 Re-understandable Honesty Memory 76 503 Lightness Dew Unbelieving 504 An artist is involved neither in truth nor in falseness; rather in honesty, self-truth, doing justice to his own experience, sincerity and affirming all life process, even beyond good and evil (all mortal values). The precondition for both the artist and philosopher the call of destiny. 505 Why does the thought and idea of "value-neutral" bring such laughter to thinkers, and yet, is believed by so many scientists? But don't worry about this, for all my ideas are "valuefree." A note for those in the twentieth century. 506 Human existence is too questionable for me too temporary, too delicate! 507 Integrity Self-knowledge Faithfulness 508 Innocence Ignoramus Iguanas 509 Lizards Specifications Longevity 510 Certainty Sincerity Self-deception 511 Alienation Nihilism Beinglessness 512 The fundamental problem of a system builder. This problem can be summed up easily enough. However, to show its complete nature as a problem will take some time. Indeed, 77 that is the problem: time. Time as human finitude, as human and nature's history, as beginning and end within the system, as sequence, as ordering, as within the history of philosophical systems, as its own appearance within the system, as the appearance of mortal death within the system, as relativism, in fact as freedom. Plus, as value or importance in terms of the philosophical system builder's own personal time and energy, that is, his time for working on a system and his philosophical maturity too. One cannot start work on a system at 20 or at 70. Insofar as these problems show themselves, we must admit that a will to a system is a will to overcome, in some ways, time; and yet, the philosophical problems arising from the relationship we are considering between time and system may be enough to show the impossibility of any system whatsoever. But let us not escape our task! 513 Human existence as pain, as time, as mortal, as subjectivity, as death, stands outside the system. 514 Suicide or the right to end life is without a doubt a right which goes against society's means and goals, that is, against the ideals of community; nevertheless, it is a right which we cannot do without, and yet, what does it mean to be for suicide? Indeed, is not life our only gift from the gods? However, suicide is a cosmic and final solution to the riddle of life, but it is not for philosophers or thinkers; they know that death is their first premise, their first sign of life. 515 What is our methodology for mysticism? Not the "what" but the "how" is our question; that is, not the content but the form. A moment or method? 516 Time is that, by virtue of which, everything becomes Nothingness in our hands and loses all real value. --A. Schopenhauer 517 Only if we lose everything, that we thereby gain God. A note by a Chinese dragon. 518 History has no ultimate value... 78 519 We need to educate the young in the art of demetaprogramming simulations in order for them to survive at all in their adult life. 520 One cannot escape the responsibility of one's society, but let that pass if nobody says anything, maybe we can all forget about it. Listen, I wasn't involved it was them, not me. The call of conscience speaks to each of us. 521 Releasement from self, ego, I as agent, self-consciousness, history, memory, property, world, and god for Buddha and Nietzsche this is more than a theory, rather it is Lifeembodiment. A goal for truth. 522 We are in the middle. We are both within the truth of metaphysics and outside of it, in the land which does not even have name, and yet, our Being has spoken to it and its voice is becoming clearer and our language has broken with the past (history) in a new and radical way; Or this is just the outcome of something which was always within the Origin and has been a voice throughout metaphysic. This, my children and overpeople, we will never know but we are moving forward by asking the question. The new beginning has started, and yet, the end is absolutely out of thought; hence no telos and therefore no entelecheia, that is no inner movement toward the final end of this epoch, perhaps we are awaiting for an opening in another realm besides thought. 523 Is there any path out of the class problem, other than the end of class altogether? The only other path would be backwards, downward in history. 524 The emancipation of the proletariat, if only the first step in the complete and total emancipation of all of mankind, is the pre-condition for truth. 525 Reality is a mask, which we put over the world, to hide a little bit of ourselves underneath there are no masks. 79 526 Kategoria is no longer thought about as a concept, let alone as the sign of a system. 527 Silence is more than the heart of language it is the background and foreground, for all the saying and shouting of the world's beingness comes through language. 528 Albert Einstein often made remarks about how the Old One or He (God) does not throw dice in the creation of the Universe (hence, at bottom, the answer to the universe is not going to be given in terms of the statistical quanta mechanics model). And yet, where is Nietzsche's dancing God? Where is the God who created our world our life? Old Newton and now Einstein are all too much theologians. 529 Do not worry if someone does not tell you the truth, because you rarely have the courage to tell yourself the truth, indeed, truth is most often a pain to the body. 530 Vanity can, at best, be only an embarrassment, and at the least merely pity. 531 Is philosophy really after the production of good books or good men? Perhaps something between a Roman and a Greek or Nietzsche's Caesar with the soul of Christ. Hence, study not books, but men and mankind. 532 What is the relationship between esse, entia, ens, and essentia? This has been the question for ontologists for over two thousand years, and yet, today it is not even a question. So be it! 533 Would one ever have thought that philosophy would deny truth to intelligible entities because they lack the spatial and temporal material of the sensuous world? --G. W. F. Hegel 534 80 If chaos, then no knowledge, no God, no subject, no substance, no underlying, no Being as ground, no universals, and no truth only the abyss. 535 Decadence or faith in progress out of the will to a holy Nothingness a signpost for a dream. 536 Descartes' first principle (arche): omne illud verum est, quod clare et distincte percipitur. This has become the death of speculative philosophy. Hinc meae lacrimae! 537 No time! that will be my time. 538 I have smelled you before, my friend, and I say to you now, "Your only ascent will be the decline into the gaping abyss." Yes, and you too, God Ecce Homo - 539 Needed: a system for inter-subjective phenomena, such as empathy, resentment, pity, revenge, embarrassment, envy, irony, sympathy, dread, innocence, shame, etc. 540 Paolo Soleri, our man for the Ecumenopolis; however, we are still trying to reach our own self-internal metaprogrammer, because of non-static distortion in the concept of Megalopolis, which at this moment is pulsating in an interlock between the future of man and our environment. Perhaps this is self-deception or just dead reckoning... 541 Nihilism no longer stands at the door of the house; indeed, the house is gone. Homelessness, as such, is our first premise our first truth. 542 Gaius Valerius Catullus and Marcus Valerius Martialis belong to the origin of the aphorism and for more recent times let us also add Sebastien Roch Nicolas Chamfort, Georg Christoph Lichterberg, Raoul Anernheimer, Hugo Hofmannsthal, Arthur Schnitzler, Richard Beer-Hofmann, Karl Kraus, Hermann Bahr, Rudolf Alexander Schroder, and Marie Ebner-Eschenbach. 81 543 Nietzsche has two ontological theses: A) Critique of the doctrine of Being as eternal, static, reality, and as a denial of Becoming. B) Countermovement: Being as life, breathing, willing, effecting, Becoming, living, and having a soul (Will to Power, # 581-2). Hence, as within time. 544 Tragic drama has the great moral disadvantage of attaching too much importance to life and death. --S. R. N. Chamfort 545 Watergate was more than just a flood. It shows in the final analysis the American system does not work, neither as an ideal nor in the conscience of its people. 546 Nihilism is the question and the will-to-power is part of the answer to that question, but who wills the will-to-power the overman. 547 If God knows me, She knows too much! Yes, that I could not stand. 548 Dream or land in distant sun Breaking upon the crystal day Strange decay A dawn before the light as Moria I follow this homeless return without will. 549 Who really has the answer to where philosophy must begin? Where must we start our thinking, if our thinking about the world, the universe, the Self, etc., must have a start, then with which one which subject do we start with? Does it not seem that every philosopher who has attempted to have a necessary and absolute beginning to philosophy, in the end 82 becomes absurd to the next epoch and generation, namely, a mere historical contingency? Can we start with hen, nous, psyche, ousia, agathon, kallo, theion, hypostasis, monas, hypokeimenon, eidos, prote, arche, on, logos, actus purus, esse, or Being? Philosophy needs to be without presuppositions for it to have a final and unhistorical science (Wissenschaft), that is, a philosophy with the right and true beginning, namely, an absolute beginning. Nevertheless, the question is still before us: Where must philosophy begin? 550 Do not question truth, for all too often it will question you! 551 No aletheia without episteme. 552 Existence Living Real-Reality 553 Goal: to attain the superman for one moment. For this I suffer everything (Kroner, xiv:306). --F. Nietzsche 554 Question: Are you a god? Answer: No. my friend, I have never been that demented or depressed. 555 Tolerance out of the weakness of uncertainty is nothing less than obscene. 556 Aphorisms can never be judged without taking into consideration their whole context, because each aphorism says something about other ones too, that is, each reflects the other. 557 Problem: a doctrine of man without an absolute, rather a theory of man as man especially with regard to our presuppositions. 83 558 America's consciousness or quantity quantity quantity ad infinitum, which to many means ad nauseam. 559 Question: What is the meaning of life? Answer: One famous Roman Lucius Annaeus Seneca came up with a pretty good final answer, perhaps that shall be our way too. 560 What is our relationship to death, especially our own death? As far as I know when death calls, my answer is silence. Death is too strong and hard for this thinker too powerful. 561 Our loss of history and the unhistorical nature of all the social sciences are typical symptoms of decay. 562 Being is no more and nothing less than will, which as will-to-will is willing-itself as an absolute will; hence, the Being of Being for us today is will. Therefore, we are faced with two questions: (A) How did this come about? and (B) What are the signs of its decline? 563 Can we have a metaphysic without "values"? So far only in vain. 564 "Causa sui ipsius," for most philosophers a contradiction, for how can anything be the cause of itself. This is one more example of the special kind of nature philosophers have given to God. But really, who created God? Answer: Man, hence man is the cause of himself. Logic always gives us a hint at the truth. 565 The sound of one hand-clapping is the sound of the universe. From: the big cookie in the bathtub. 566 God neither exists nor does not exist; it is rather a question of nonsense. 84 567 Technology should become something like our art is today. 568 Do not ask me about monks and yogis, but rather the bodhisattva. 569 Philosophy needs to turn away from words to reality, from symbols to life, from theory to praxis... 570 "...the critique of religion is the prerequisite of every critique." Who said this? Was it Nietzsche or Marx or Hegel? 571 God is dead, now it has become our time on earth. 572 Fulfillment is the name of the game. 573 Now is the moment of your decision! 574 I still have many unthoughts within me. 575 You Godless ones, now your question is not an easy one: do you seek and desire Being or Becoming? 576 One of the last things that Nietzsche wrote was a short note to the first philosopher to give public lectures on Nietzsche's philosophy (Copenhagen, 1888); it says, Postmark Torino, 4 Jan 1889 To my friend Georg! After you have discovered me, it was no trick to find me: the difficulty now is to lose me.... 85 The Crucified Indeed, some of us have now found Nietzsche and his power is almost too much, for we come away with the gathered honey and it is too thick in our veins, his language overcomes us--we, who have lived too long in the valleys. Nevertheless, Nietzsche is asking us not only to climb up to those few mountains with him, but also to take the greatest weight and stress upon us--that which is the most difficult for thinkers today, namely, to think through the thought of the eternal return of the Same, and hence, to finally lose Nietzsche. So, that we can lose the old metaphysical heaven and world and return to our homecoming within the meaning of the earth, as Nietzsche called us--the godless anti-metaphysicians. That means: to climb the mountain and at the top to step off... 577 The eternal return of the Same is a thesis about the universe in time or about the universal remaining in time or to be more precise about the universe having a future. 578 Speculative or metaphysical thinking is such a special kind of pursue an desire, that only a few understand it and perhaps only one in a generation can create it, for the rest, they remain at the outside--technicians. Hence, the paradigm is the technician. 579 Let all things and worlds enter the divine realm of Becoming. 580 Beyond Nihilism--indeed, what single human can say that? 581 Ens certum Objectivity Thinghood Godlessness UnderGodhood ManGoding Themeless Diaphoretic Scenario Valuing Meaningfullessness Worthlessness Star-Maker Anti-Organizer Negentropy Formlessness Spacing Dimensionlessing Contradiction Ground Unconditionedness 86 Spinoza Schelling Hegel Anti-Pantheism Monotheism MegaPolytheism Metaphorically Prosaic Unliterally Problem: three concepts together but their actual relationship is unnamed, hence, you leave it up to the thinker to crack the riddle. Indeed, perhaps all too much of a riddle, my friends. This age is an age that has no guessers of riddles; they have not yet appeared on this earth. 582 The problem of an exobiologist--is the earth worth saving? That is, is life on earth anything worthy of consideration by others in the universe? Maybe as potential, but right now... 583 With all due respect to history, I hope that Richard Nixon is the lowest point in the American political process. Next time, they might not be a mere used-car salesman. 584 Freedom is a concept that in reality is completely alien to Americans; however I am not sure I can say much about this either. But at least their thinking is moving in the right direction. 585 Man -the belanguaged thing. 7/27/2000 If you see Nietzsche on the road, do not stop and kill him, but walk with him and laugh. How can there be no teleology? After 'becoming' then there is growth and the 'end'. No end – how is that possible? Perhaps, no theological end. If there is no 'end', then there is no 'beginning'. What would beginning ontology really be called? 87 If my view is viewlessness, then there is no view. The Buddha saw the sickness of views and thought viewlessness would then end suffering. Perhaps this only works for the Buddhist. Concept-mummies know there is a real concept. No new gods, well no new concepts either. How much does Egypt still determine our future? Public work projects. If 'logic' is the answer, why is there not a proof for this solution? If 'logic' is not the answer, then why is there 'logic' at all? What is the place for 'logic' in a total system of life? How can one have a deep insight into common sense? Where are the little philosophers now? Common sense is not the answer. Common sense is an ahistorical phenomenon par exeane. Common sense knows no bonds because it is the most base. Philosopher of common sense. Time is more than just the 'now'. Time is the opening that lets being as being – be. Does that mean 'time' is? No. Problem for the chronologist and the ontologist. Indo-European languages all follow Sanskrit in its ability to abstract above the partakers of singularity. Thinghoodness – what a concept. Spacelessness, truthfulness, whiteness, timelessness, moments, tables, chairs – all of these are above the partakers. The Chinese and especially Japanese with Zen can point to the extreme radicalization of the singular individual. Example, a great work of art is a singular individual. There is only one Michaelangelo's Moses. Beauty maybe only skin deep, but it only last for a few fleeting moments as well. If Nietzsche wants to give birth to a dancing star – then why not a metaphysical system? Perhaps too much metaguilt for such a system. Only a few of us know the death and end of the proton. Why be faithful to the earth? It only just happens to be our little ball of dirt. This ball of dirt or that ball of rock – who cares and why? I do not think a geologist knows the answer or even the question. What does it matter if we hear no echo from being? Have we no nose for being? Where is the ear for Being? Are hearing and smelling existence in a way different from seeing? No. The gross ideas and ideals are just another group of abstractions. What is the value of these abstractions for us, for culture, or for our history? A want for the value of nothingness. Aristotle's good man – how do we define 'good'? With an axe. 88 Kant says we need something like a phenomenology before ontology. Do we need an ontology or a phenomenology between metaphysics? Yes. Hegel follows this lead, but without help from Kant. The idea that phenomenology of spirit is a ladder which accents the 'whole system' of science (in large sense). Hegel sees the particulars in the system but not as a loosely connected piece. Spirit is working to become the most real universal in a non-static sense. Enjoy the moment; for how can the same moment come again? The abstraction called the momentness comes again and again, but not the same moment. There are no other bounds on the moment. My way or waylessness – which is the way? Follow the path in the woods to the way...watch out for the trees and the poison ivy. Can we make the verb -? Goallessnessing? Beinglessnessing? Nothinglessnessing? In which location is space? Spacelessnessing – a processing of space. Directionlessnessnow that is the direction. Reason knows no reason. What is the plan for reason in the life of the mind and culture? We are the rational animal, and yet, reason can not make the final decision. My hope – hopelessnessing. Any X is a symbol of the age in which it appears. Poetry – is the whole story that speaks to the whole of thinking. Is history only a story? What is the plot? Humans are a special unconcealness with Being. Culture without balance – This is the problem. Humans often have a balancing act. My inference – too few and too many inferences. If I knew the story about Job, why would I tell anyone? Contradictions are the clear points to look out. These points are way too few. Utopia the fewer the people, the better. 89 Incidentally, Spinoza's optics is still used today. He saw too much. Can we see nationalistic feelings fall by the way side? What will become of nationstates? A problem for Nietzsche and Hegel. Aphorisms are the best and the worst to lecture. The real question is where the aphoristic methodology stands with philosophy's method and with thinking. Heidegger blinks. Nietzsche laughs and Hegel takes a step back – too much danger. He asks Nietzsche to put his ink pen down. Hold on – and just put your weapon down and stand back. A disciple – a confusion of the highest order. Stop that – immediately! Aphorisms have an inexhaustibility that makes them more honest than other methodologies. Hegel's system where he claims only the method is true – same with Kant. The Critique or Pure Reason is a treatise on method – not a theory of entire knowledge. Kant's dream was a different kind of system than the Critique. Say one thing profound – a challenge from a thinker to philosopher. Thinking a single joy. The very nature of the question is questionless. How do we question the question mark? The first principle of a questionology. Philosophers blush. Can we stand the thought of non-Ersatz life? A life that is radical uniqueness? Do we even have the terms to talk about this kind of life? The present moment is totally against Hegel who had it right but it never got it completely right. Aphorism overall. Where does that lead to and from, or should it be lead from and to ... contra forward. Why did Kant defend the common beliefs – ask his sisters who could even write? Nietzsche and Heidegger both had a problem in getting underway. They both saw only bridges to somewhere or sometime later than themselves. Paths toward something more than the here-and-now. Both thought of the dawn – but perhaps they were at the twilight and the end. For Nietzsche, everything is rare. Nietzsche knew the herd all-to-well. He saw it everywhere. Platonism for the people was what he was enraged against. Nietzsche was a sign of his times – we are still trying to read that sign. Without the nothing doing nothingnessing, then being would not being or Beingnessing. Can we say Beinghooding and still make sense? Well, no. 90 The whole truth – now that says it all. Part of the truth only shows the problematic nature of speaking about the truth. Truth or truthfulness -are they not concept-mummies left over from the Greeks? Why was the Buddha silent when so many questions were put to him? The Buddha's path was completely new. People tried to understand him. Their own views – he did not fit. There the concept-mummies were of no use against the Buddha's awakening. Meaninglessness again and again – is this the fundamental position and theme? Or, is it yet another worthless dark path? How to be superficial in a shallow world? Decisions – decisions. The no-nonsense world of the uninvolved has to show itself to us as the final answer. If falsification is the key to knowledge, then the key to knowledge is man's openness to possibility. Does Heidegger's call to conscience make sense? Where does this come from? No ethics here. Maybe a hint at the problem. A doer for a deed – behind the cause. What are our idols and ideals today? Youth is number one. Progress is number two. Dare I mention multiculturalism? Systematizers make order out chaos – in fact, lots of order and chaos. They have no tolerance for a little chaos. Are chaos levels on the increase or decrease? Look to the chaos within. Humility – what could that really mean to a philosopher? Nothing. What is the goal today? Next year? Next century? What can humans hope to achieve in the next few hundred years? Does the last few hundred years give any guidance? No – well then once more into the water well of the future. Let the truth be seen and push the goal with the arrow and the bow. Degeneration of all high values – of all values. What are the pseudo-values and the antivalues of nations now? What has happened to wisdom? Wisdom has become the un-wise for all of us. What are the symptoms of wisdom now? Is this the ultimate decline of wisdom? Not for philosopher – no wisdom there. Refutation of thinking. The perfect caricature of a philosopher. Heidegger hates dialectics – it is such a threat to thinkers. A sad joke for philosophers. 91 Moralism is this concept-mummy even ethical? I think not. 8/2/2000 Who was the problem – Socrates or Plato? The problem of Metaphysics is the problem of these concept-mummies. How can we escape metaphysics as long as the concept-mummies dictate how we think? Metaphysics thinks Being as Being in the most general way. The beginning of something new – The ontologist blinks. Would or could the great schoolman teach us now? 8/9-10/2000 Over the Pacific Ocean How much science assumes metaphysical thinking? At the end of metaphysics, then there is the end of metaphysical thinking and science. Science and reason two concepts that have no end in sight but Kant showed they have the same power. Although the general public may question reason, it seems science has more value than mere reason. The value issue still speaks to our 'metaphysical thinking' – it speaks to our place in the history of metaphysics. 8/16/2000 What are we looking for? How do we know when we found it? The quest for something. The quest – points toward the process of wondering. Why do we seek out the new experience? Or, is it enough? The world behind or inside the world of appearances – what a strange idea. The shadows on the cave wall – Plato's idea and ideals in one thought. The essence and extreme disenchantment in the beginning. Schelling said the alpha and omega of philosophy was freedom. How does Heidegger think of freedom? Freedom breaks open the concept of system, which is so dear to the idealist metaphysic, but what is next? The next is defined as after metaphysics; however, does freedom still impact our thinking? I am not so sure. 92 Oct 2001 When Kant and Hegel think there is reason in the world and in us, then how could we disprove them wrong? Would we use reason? If I can say in ten sentences what other people write in a book, then why shouldn't I say it in ten words? Need I say more? Your answer please! The most famous three words are "I love you!" The most devilish three words in philosophy are "God is dead". March 2004 Nietzsche said, "I am stilling waiting for a philosophical physician in the exceptional sense of that word – one who has to pursue the problem of total health of a people, time, race or of humanity – to muster the courage to push my suspicion to its limit and to risk the proposition: what was at stake in all philosophizing hitherto was not all "truth" but something else – let us say, health, future, growth, power, life." (The Gay Science ("la gaya scienza"), "Preface to the Second Edition," #2). So, what does it mean to be a philosophical physician? From our point of view this viewlessness may help us overcome our eternal sickness of philosophical systems (East meets West). We are sick! We are suffering from the distress of no distress in this age. We have lost our sense of Being as whole. The West has declined and our age lost our way. We have no goal. Mankind is lost. We need a philosophical physician to get us out of the bottle. We are just the little "fly" moving around in the bottle looking for a way out of the bottle. 93 Aphorisms: Martin Heidegger and the new other beginning (Anfang) Introduction Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) is one of the most written about philosophers in the twentieth century. In many ways, Heidegger is a philosopher's philosopher. The center, the very heart of philosophy has always been metaphysics, not ethics, not politics, not socalled logic, not the descriptive history of philosophy, not aesthetics, not philosophy of history or philosophy of religion; but at the core, the foundation of philosophy is metaphysics. This is where the great philosophers – Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and now Heidegger are most at home. In Descartes' analogy, metaphysics is the trunk of the tree of everything else; the branches are the sciences and other disciplines. Heidegger is not putting forward another worldview or ethical system by which we can live and that would answer all of our questions, but rather he is putting forward the radical transformation our very foundation by pointing to the nature of man beyond the reasoning animal, by pointing toward the question of the nature of Being. The essential point here is that Heidegger wants to leave metaphysics behind and approach all of these questions from a new beginning in philosophy, in thought. The purpose here is to philosophize with Heidegger and come to a deeper understanding of what a new beginning means. 1 First beginnings: the Greeks, Platonism. The end of the first beginning – Nietzsche. 2 Martin Heidegger in section 85 of his second magnum opus, says, "the thrust into the crossing and thereby the knowing awareness that any kind of metaphysics has and must come to an end, if philosophy is to attain its other beginning" (GA 65, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) p.171-173, et. p 121). What does this mean? Philosophy wants to attain another beginning. How is that possible? What are the conditions that would allow philosophy to attain the other beginning? Answer: basically any kind (all forms) of metaphysics must come to an end, only then will philosophy be able to attain the other beginning. The crossing goes from the guiding-question to the grounding-question: what is the truth of Seyn (Being)? (GA 65, Section 85). So, the other beginning is linked to the "grounding-question". This question (what is the truth of Seyn (Being)?) is now Heidegger's essential question. In Heidegger's first major work Being and Time (1927), he asks the question: what is the meaning (Sinn) of Being? In Heidegger's second major work, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) GA 65, he has re-thought the question in the light of ten years. His question now is: what is the truth of Seyn (Being)? Heidegger sees himself after the end of metaphysics in the attempt at a new beginning to philosophy. Sometimes Heidegger is ambiguous about his 94 position in this process. Perhaps we 'read' too much into Heidegger's own position. I think Heidegger is leading us to this point, he is the guide in the process, but somehow this not just Heidegger's position. Note: Heidegger is still showing us "if philosophy", that means that this is not a "done deal". But this has nothing to do with several philosophical lectures delivered in a university in Germany 60 years ago or written scratches on paper in 2003 or bits in a computer. The historical epoch -it happens. To drop back into metaphysics: this not a subjective nor psychological decision. Is there a knowing awareness that metaphysics must come to an end? Answer: yes, I think so. But there is still a long way to go in view of the one issue associated with value metaphysics. We are still in the midst of value-systems and value metaphysics – they are alive and well. There is still a task for philosophical (reflective) thinking at the end of metaphysics, but Heidegger is re-directing us and showing us a new direction and new beginning. This is an attempt at a contextual interpretation and understanding of the project of a new beginning for philosophy. 3 Old beginning to a new, other beginning. What is the new, other beginning? This is the question mark and question thinking that these investigations are pursuing. Do we have the truth? Perhaps "not". Do we know the answer? Perhaps "not". In pursuit of a reformulated question – yes! Is this our new "worldview", our new "philosophy", our new "goal", our new "happiness", our new "science"? Answer: no! The process and the thinking are the "goals". Listening, reflecting, elucidations (Erläuterungen), thinking, musing, writing, dialogue, turning on the path, changing direction, going down the wrong path, backtracking, being lost, being knock down, being on the Holzwege, being on the Wegmarken, being on the Der Feldweg, Unterwegs zur Sprache, Wege nicht Werke, --these are all part of the goal and the process. Staring up at the mountain and climbing the mountain. We humbly need to be seekers on the pathways. The seeking, the process, the philosophizing, the questioning – this is often more of the final "goal" and telos for us than some final "essay" or an "answer". What are "answers" for us now? Who is the one that needs to be given an "answer"? 4 What is the subjective and objective history of the Being of beings? Heidegger, in a short essay on the Recollection in Metaphysics, says, "The history of Being is neither the history of man and of humanity, nor the history of the human relation to beings and to Being. The history of Being is Being itself, and only this." („Recollection in Metaphysics", et. p. 82). ("Die Seinsgeschichte ist weder die Geschichte des Menschen und eines Menschentums noch die Geschichte des menschlichen Bezugs zum Seienden und zum Sein. Die Seinsgeschichte ist das Sein selbst und nur dieses." ('Die Die Erinnerung in der Metaphysik' Nietzsche II, p. 489). What does this mean for history? What does this mean for Being? Heidegger is trying to understand the nature of history and more precisely Being after metaphysics. This is neither the subjective nor objective account of the history of man or mankind, nor the history of an 'objective" being; and in 95 addition, this is not a philosophical history of man's relation to some external world. The history of Being stands uniquely alone. Can we say that the history of Being stands only by itself – pure (but not absolute and unmediated, Hegel said "Das Sein ist das unbestimmte Unmittelbare")? What is the corresponding object (being) that the truth of this statement is correct in representing the object? The Being of beings is no object or being, but rather the matter for reflective thinking. How can a non-object have a history? In what book can we look up its history and find a written description? Are there primary documents for research? These questions should all sound funny to you, but not because of some of problem in "logic" or "truth". Traditional logic will not help us in these thick woods. 5 Philosophy is not for helping us switch channels on the T.V. or to help us figure out which program to watch. Philosophy is not some great knowledge for us to live life here on earth according to the highest rules and principles. Philosophy does not put money in the bank or help us with the stock market. Philosophy will not help us to find the "truth". Perhaps "philosophy" is only a "perhaps". Philosophy is linked with the interrogative. Questioning thinking may leap toward philosophy. This is not to question thinking. Heidegger said that "philosophy accomplishes nothing", namely, there is no practical result from philosophical reflection. Why then do philosophy? Indeed what made Kant work on the Critique of Pure Reason or Hegel do a Phenomenology of Spirit or Science of Logic or Nietzsche start on his path of the will to power? If you tangle with philosophy, it will tangle with you. It will "untertangle" (new coinage) you as you know yourself. Do not take it lightly or without a dose of 'play'. 6 What is known: 1) The Greeks and Platonism are the first beginning. 2) Hölderlin gives us insight into the future of a new, other beginning. 3) Nietzsche tried to think anew; he is both the end and the transition. 4) Heidegger is not sure, but he is headed toward the new, other beginning. 5) Heidegger through Aristotle and Nietzsche is headed toward another beginning; that is, without the eternal, super-sensuous, the eternal ideas, the eternal ideals, namely, without Platonism (not Übersinnlichen, Unendlichkeit and Ewigkeit). 6) This is not Heidegger's personal philosophy; he is a guide and a builder of narrow bridges toward the other side of metaphysics, the time and location that has left metaphysics behind. 7) Heidegger wants to twist and turn his way out of metaphysics and leave it completely behind in the dust of time. Is he successful? We only note what is known in some outline form at this point in the history of Heidegger's publication and also in the author's (Daniel Fidel Ferrer) own thinking and reflections. This writing is still "about" Heidegger. I am not attempting a preparatory 96 exercise in questioning of the truth of Being (Seyn) or the meaning of Being in any way like what Heidegger is attempting. Can we say this is writing "with" Heidegger? I think Heidegger would want us to Auseinandersetzung with him, since Heidegger, like Nietzsche, is not looking for "believers" or disciples ("what matters all believers?" This is Nietzsche's question in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, "On the Gift-Giving Virtue"). Heidegger is not producing a proof or some kind of special argument or making some rhetorical movement of language or a language game for us to play on Sunday afternoon; but rather, Heidegger is guiding us to a new beginning. 7 The abandonment of beings by Being gives Heidegger the need and the distress to move his questioning toward the truth of Being. But Being does not overstep its own possibilities – just like a tree that grows from a little seed to a great tree, all of this starts within its own possibilities. There is nothing added by man or humanity that makes the tree more than it is. 8 We are trying to transform the questions: 1) What is the truth of Being (Seyn)? 2) What is the meaning (Sinn) of the Being of beings? 3) What does this mean to overcome metaphysics? 4) What is the new, other beginning for philosophy? 9 In a different context, Heidegger said, "I write all of this in the form of questions; for, as far as I can see [he saw a lot], thinking can today do more than to continually ponder what evoked in the said questions." (On The Question of Being, Letter to Ernst Jünger, "Zur Seinsfrage (1955) / Über die Linie" in GA 9 Pathmarks et. p.306). ("Ich schreibe dies alles in der Form von Fragen; denn mehr vermag heute, soweit ich sehe, ein Denken nicht, als unablässig eig das zu bedenken, was die angeführten Fragen hervorruft."). What does this mean? Heidegger does not have some jar of knowledge where he pulls out the "truth". Philosophical questioning in Heidegger's hands can leap ahead into an opening of the truth of Being, but not some special ontological knowledge that Heidegger acquired in the Black Forest of Germany. For Heidegger, philosophical questioning is not being used to come up with a philosophical worldview in order to see a new world arrangement. Heidegger's questioning is setting part of the context for us to see his pathways and byways as he seeks Being. Heidegger wrote, "that every thinking of Seins, all philosophy can never be confirmed by "facts", i.e. by beings. Making itself intelligible is suicide (Selbstmord) for philosophy." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) p. 435, et. p. 307). So, philosophical thinking is neither realism nor empiricism, nor is it the construction of a worldview based on values or facts. We are not looking to some science for help in doing philosophy. For Heidegger "intelligible" means trying to find the truth of Being among beings or in other words not ontic truths 97 (intelligible) as in some kind of science. For Heidegger this is suicide for philosophy, since it is not on the way to Being or the opening of Being or the truth of Being (Seyn). Heidegger called this time, "In that age of total lack of questioning anything, it is sufficient as a start to inquire into the question of all questions." (GA 65, et. p. 8). 10 Thinkers can try to overstep their own limitations. Heidegger said, "This again consists in the fact that the thinker can never himself say what is most of all his own. It must remain unsaid, because the sayable (Word, German=Wort) receives its determination from what is not sayable (inexpressible)" (Recollection in Metaphysics, et. p. 77-78). ("Diese wiederum besteht darin, dass der Denker sein Eigenstes selbst nie sagen kann. Es muss ungesagt bleiben, weil das sagbare Wort aus dem Unsagbaren seine Bestimmung empfängt." ('Die Erinnergung in der Metaphysik' Nietzsche II, p. 484). What does this mean? Is this some sort of mysticism or it is just another one of those connections between Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)? Heidegger is driving the point toward the "unsaid," which he uses as a way to get at what thinkers were right on the edge of saying, but did not actually say. If we want to say what Heidegger or any other philosopher said, then it is philology and not philosophy. If we want to have a live dialogue with another thinker, another philosopher, then we bring them into our thinking, our dialogue, our critical confrontation and encounter them with the issues for thinking. Not as what is dead and long dead in a thinker, but rather to bring their thinking in close to us. Heidegger wants us to think about the first beginning and the new, other beginning; but we need to see what is also unsaid in Heidegger's thinking. Heidegger started a movement away from the first beginning, which started with the Greeks and Platonism, and now moves on to a new and entirely different beginning. How are these two beginnings related? What is unsaid in Heidegger that points to this relationship? We are attempting to bring out the unsaid in Heidegger and to name this relationship. Although Heidegger is hesitant on this point because as he remarks, this is up to Being and not in our "heads". The unsaid drives us to "speak;" but, in some ways, there are limitations on what we can say, because some part always remains unsaid – we must always attempt to say the unsayable. 11 Scholarship issues with Heidegger and the other beginning. While Heidegger was working on his second major writing project (as opposed to just simply lectures or seminars or essays), the work is entitled: Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (19361939) (GA 65), he was also, during the winter semester of 1937-1938, working on a lecture course series, entitled: "Grundfragen der Philosophie. Ausgewählte 'Probleme' der 'Logik' [Vorlesung]". In section 31 we have the title of "The end of the first beginning and the preparation for another beginning." (Basic Questions of Philosophy. Selected "Problems" of "Logic GA 45, p. 124, et. p 108). ("Das Ende des ersten Anfangs und die Vorbereitung des anderen Anfangs") and Subsection a), which is subtitled: "Our situation 98 at the end of the beginning and the demand for a reflection on the first beginning as a preparation for another beginning." (GA 45 p. 124, et. p 108). ("Unser Stand im Ende des Anfangs und die Forderung einer Besinnung auf den ersten Anfang als Vorbereitung des anderen Anfangs"). Although Heidegger may have been thinking about the issue of the new, other beginning, it may have been during this lecture series that we have the first written communication about this topic. Although this whole lecture series seems in many ways different than most of his historical lectures, it seems much closer to Heidegger's own thought than to be normally acting as a "guide" for us in the history of philosophy. Case in point: Heidegger writes, "That is, we are standing before the decision between the end (and its running out, which may still take centuries) and another beginning, one which can only be a moment, but whose preparation requires the patience "optimist" are no more capable of than "pessimists." (GA 45 g 124, et. p. 108). ("Und dies sagt: Wir stehen vor der Entscheidung zwischen dem Ende und seinem vielleicht noch Jahrhunderte füllenden Auslauf – und dem anderen Anfang, der nur ein Augenblick sein kann, dessen Vorbereitung aber jener Geduld bedarf, der "Optimisten" gleichwenig wie "Pessimisten" je gewachsen sind"). Heidegger is unsure of himself at this point as to the question of exactly how long this period of history will last. Nietzsche is the end point of the history of metaphysics, but it is not certain that Heidegger is at the point of the new, other beginning – or, Heidegger is still a transitional stage. Evidently, Heidegger is pointing out the general structure of the history of metaphysics and the end of metaphysics, which is a movement to a new, other beginning; however, the judgment about Heidegger's own position in this history is not yet clear. 12 Nietzsche said, "Epistemologist who becomes entangled in the snares of grammar (the metaphysics of the people)" (Gay Science, "la gaya scienza" #354). Would Nietzsche point this critical analysis toward Heidegger if he knew about Heidegger's grounding question of the truth of Being (Seyn)? Nietzsche himself sees how close he is to a philosopher such as Benedictus De Spinoza (1632-1677), but how would Nietzsche see Heidegger's project? Heidegger speaks on Spinoza in his Schelling lectures (GA 42), but it seems that both Heidegger and Schelling would be very far from an eagle's point of view like Spinoza's. Heidegger points toward the basic tendency of Schelling to be antiSpinoza. Nietzsche is strongly anti-grammar as creating metaphysics – how does this sort out Spinoza, Schelling, and Heidegger? Nietzsche's vapor and wisp of Being (empty fiction) and Reality, all of these are mere concepts-mummies. (Twilight of Idols: or How one Philosophizes with a Hammer, "Reason in Philosophy"). Heidegger must twist his way out of this pathway to a different dwelling and meaning of the earth. 13 What kind of sea does Heidegger want to venture out to be in the new beginning? Nietzsche says, "At long last the horizon appears free to us again, even if it should be bright; at long last our ships may venture out again, venture out to face any danger; all daring of the lover of knowledge is permitted again; the sea, our sea, lies open again; perhaps there has never yet been such an "open sea". (Gay Science, "la gaya scienza" 99 First aphorism of Book Five, "We fearless Ones", #343, 1886). Heidegger wants to get on Nietzsche's ships and attempt (Versuch) that venture out into those open seas. Heidegger has this knowledge of how the first beginning started western philosophy; Kant was the next decisive step, Nietzsche as the final step, the end; the end that speaks to the transition across a narrow footbridge (Die Stegen) to another, new beginning (Anfang). This horizon is bright and clear. From on the top of the mountains you can see the horizon in all directions. Supposedly on top of Mount Everest the sky is very dark blue (almost black) and you can see the planets during the day; of course, the horizon is open like the open sea. Part of the problem of being on an open sea is that it is hard to know which direction you are going or the image of a snake in a bamboo shoot (i.e., you are going very fast in one direction, but you do not know which direction). The issue of direction is also an issue with Heidegger's as well. Some of the outline of the future is becoming clear out of the mist. But Heidegger does not posit this as a goal, not does he "will' the new, other beginning (non-willing Will or Gelassenheit). The non-willing Will leads to releasement. This is neither a subjective nor an objective analysis of beings or history, rather this is where philosophy hits the road. Even that use of rhetoric kills the meaning. The thumping of grammar and rhetoric stands behind the shimmering curtain. 14 Heidegger was interviewed by Rudolf Augstein and Georg Wolff, which took place September 23, 1966 and was published in Der Spiegel (31 May 1976), after Heidegger's death as per his request. The last two sentences that Heidegger says in the interview are, "For us today the greatest of what is to be thought is too great. We can perhaps struggle with building a narrow and not very far reaching footbridge for a crossing." ("Für uns Heutige ist das Grosse des zu Denkenden zu gross. Wir können uns vielleicht daran abmühen, an schmalen und wenig weit reichenden Stegen eines Überganges zu bauen."). Heidegger is speaking of the greatest of the new beginning for philosophy; he thinks it is going to be very difficult for us. So, Heidegger thinks we can only build a footbridge (Stegen) to a new crossing (Übergang), to a new beginning (Anfang). Furthermore, he adds that it will be "not very far reaching". Thus, Heidegger is placing us in a 'precarious' position and he is not giving us a lot of hope that he has the "answer" for us. Plus, even if he has the "answer," it is not far reaching, so we are stuck with having to work out our own crossing. In another place, Heidegger says, "And he who will someday grasp it does not need "my" attempt (Versuch). For he must have laid out his own path thereunto." (Und der, der es einstmals begreifen wird, braucht "meinen" Versuch nicht; denn er muss selbst den Weg dahin sich gebahnt haben.). (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis), p. 8, et. p. 7). For Heidegger, the other, new beginning needs to be unfolded in our lived space and time, but for the future ones they may not need Heidegger's attempts. In as much as Heidegger wants to unriddle the riddle of future philosophers, they may not need Heidegger's attempts (Versuch) or even follow in his pathways. Readers Note: Aphorisms 15 to 45 are detailed reflections on specific passages from Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis) (GA 65). Each aphorism starts with the English translation and then the original German. The English translations are based on 100 the translations of Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly (thanks), but there are many changes by Daniel Fidel Ferrer. The idea is, by working through in detail many of the important passages, those specific facets and aspects of Heidegger's reflections on the new, other beginning will become clear. They are presented here in the order of the sections in Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis) and then the German version is also given. The German title is: Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) GA 65. This most likely is not in chronological order, since Heidegger started this in 1936/37, the last section on 'Being' was done in 1938, and the very final handwritten version completed in May of 1939. Given the nature of the writing and re-writing process, it is not clear how chronological the actual order of the sections was developed. Can we say the methodology in this section is scholia and not actually the aphorism? 14.5 Getting Heidegger 'right' is to be left to Heideggerian philology – philosophizing with Heidegger that is our singular task. Heidegger says, "Discovering 'Kant in himself' is to be left to Kant philology" (Kant and the problem of metaphysics, ET p.175). What is philosophy? How are we to do philosophy with or against Heidegger? Heidegger, in an early insightful remark, said, "All philosophical interpretation is destructive, controversy, and radicalization, which is not equivalent to skepticism. Or else it is nothing at all; mere chatter that repeats more laboriously what was said in simpler and better fashion by the author himself." (The Essence of Human Freedom: an introduction to philosphy. GA 31 Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit. Einleitung in die Philosophie (Sommersemester 1930, et p. 118). Through the seeking of a dialogue with Heidegger we are also attempting to engage in philosophizing. The matter for thought brings us forward toward actually doing philosophy. Heidegger wants us to do more than just get it "right". From a different point of view are the excellent remarks from Kant, when he said through his students' notes: "How should it be possible to learn philosophy anyway? Every philosophical thinker builds his own work, so to be speak, on someone else's ruins, but no work has ever come to be that was to be lasting in all its parts. Hence, one cannot learn philosophy, then, just because it is not yet given. But even granted that there is a philosophy actually at hand, no one who learned it would be able to say he was a philosopher, for subjectively his cognitions of it would always be only historical." (Lectures on Logic, et. p. 538). This thought of Kant should be read and re-read, since it makes the critical path and real philosophy much more than just reading philosophy or learning someone else's philosophical "system". Rather, it points to the nature of the philosophical task as philosophizing beyond the representing of a historical philosophy. We need to think the thoughts, not just repeat the language. For Nietzsche, Kant was just building a system with historical concepts that Kant thought were given, whereas, Nietzsche knew these concepts were not given at all. Heidegger knows we need to look at these concepts through the process of destruction and radicalization – that is, the concepts need to be shaken and touched with the hammer. 101 15 Beginning of the very first section number 1 (GA 65, p. 4, et. p.3), the first sentence reads: "Contributions" enact a questioning along a pathway which is first traced out by the crossing to the other beginning, into which Western thinking is now entering. This pathway brings the crossing into the openness of history and establishes the crossing as perhaps a very long sojourn, in the enactment of which the other beginning of thinking always remains only intimation, but already decisive." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 3). „Die „Beiträge" fragen in einer Bahn, die durch den Übergang zum anderen Anfang, in den jetzt das abendländische Denken einrückt, erst gebahnt wird. Diese Bahn bringt den Übergang ins Offene der Geschichte und begründet ihn als einen vielleicht sehr langen Aufenthalt, in dessen Vollzug der andere Anfang des Denkens immer nur das Geahnte aber doch schon Entschiedene bleibt." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (19361938) (GA 65, p. 4). Heidegger begins and ends his second major work (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis), Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65), with a discussion of language. He starts with the issue of the public title, which, I think, means the title Contributions to Philosophy. However, he says that the proper title (gemässe Überschrift) is Vom Ereignis (from enowning, the event of appropriation, the event, properizing event, appropriating event, the happening). Therefore, we should really read this work as an expression of "from" Ereignis. In section 35, Heidegger says, "Das Ereignis would be the proper title for the "work" that can only be prepared for; and therefore, instead of that the title must be: Beiträge zur Philosophie." (et. p. 54). Now, it is important to note that in the future we will be seeing a publication by Heidegger called: GA71 Das Ereignis (1941/42). What is the purpose of Heidegger's major work called: Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis)? Heidegger is giving us an example of his anfängliche Denken about Ereignis. In addition, we should note that Heidegger calls this a "preparatory exercise". This is not a complete and final or finished work (Werke). Heidegger seems to back away from the idea in general of a published work (cf. GA 66, p. 427). Why is that? A partial answer is that we are always underway toward.... Now let us look at the way Heidegger speaks to the matter for thought – the other beginning. What does he mean by the remark, "pathway "(Bahn) which is first traced out by the crossing to the other beginning"? I think this means that Heidegger is showing us this "pathway" and is guiding us toward that other beginning. Where does Heidegger stand? How does Heidegger see himself within the history of Being (Geschichte des Seyn)? For example, it was Heidegger who pointed out the forgottenness of Being or the abandonment of Being (Seinsverlassenheit). So, we must ask where Heidegger himself sees his own questioning and thinking within his own philosophy. Where does Heidegger see himself standing in the tradition of western philosophy? Does Heidegger break history with the first beginning to start an entirely new, unique, and original 102 (primordial) beginning to philosophy? Again, please note that Heidegger, in this first section of this publication (note: I do not call this a work or a book), is giving us the importance of the other beginning. The purpose of this publication is partially to give us a passageway toward some "x", and that means some kind of a location as this other beginning. This "crossing as perhaps a very long sojourn" means he is not sure how long this process will take. I think in other passages we might find him even more hesitant. How can we know how long this process might take? Would you consider this to be ontological historical knowledge of some coming event or happening? How are we to consider this period or epoch of our current historical placement in our historical time era with regard to our (Da-Sein) relationship to Being (Seyn)? We are not trying to predict or improve our relationship nor can we 'will it' or request some kind of change in humans. Sometimes Heidegger speaks of us falling silent (Verschweigung), which puts us in a location for listening and belonging (Zugehörigkeit). Perhaps this will work for us. What do you hear? Heidegger is clear that the other beginning is what Western thinking is now entering and I think that means for us that it is just beginning or in other words, if you like, the beginning of the beginning or the prelude to historical thinking of Being. This is decisive for Heidegger, but has it become decisive for us? How can it become decisive for us? In what direction must our thinking take for us to participate in this preparation for a new kind of thinking (enthinking, Er-Denken, GA 65 section 265)? The decision is not just with "us" (Da-Sein), but with the epoch. There is neither a subjective nor an objective ahistorical argument nor proof given here. 16 "In the meantime, in crossing to another beginning, philosophy has to have achieved one crucial thing: projecting-open, i.e., the grounding enopening of the free-play of the timespace of the truth of Seyn." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 4) „Inzwischen muss die Philosophie im Übergang zum anderen Anfang ein Wesentliches geleistet haben: den Entwurf, d. h. die gründende Eröffnung des Zeit-Spiel-Raumes der Wahrheit des Seyns." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 5). We can re-think Heidegger's thinking here by a re-wording and try another kind of translation into English. For example, a reverse reading then becomes: the Time-PlaySpace is the general opening of the truth of Being; this must be so for philosophy in order for the projecting-open, which is achieved by crossing to the other beginning. The other beginning archives the projecting-opening (Entwurf), which means the Time-Play-Space of the truth of Being (Wahrheit des Seyns). We can force the issue and say, "the other beginning is projecting open as Time-Play-Space as the truth of Being"or the "the truth of Being is the opening of the Time-Play-Space (and this happens as the crossing (Übergang) to the other beginning) ". We are getting inside Heidegger's language play and hopefully this is more than just rhetoric on our part and Heidegger's as well. What 103 are the ideas here? Heidegger says, "This saying does not describe or explain, does not proclaim or teach. " (GA65, p. 4, et. p.4). There is no proof here and none is attempted. This attempt (Versuch) is in a different direction. Note that Heidegger uses a term like attempt (Versuch) with its Nietzschean overtones on the first page of this work. All future thinking is under way (Gedanken-gang). This means that there is no final philosophical "work" or complete system. If we have no questions and we want to describe the world in some systematic way, then we must return to do battle with Hegel over the nature of those expanding moments in history, which become the absolute spirit unfolding in human history. Our point here is that Heidegger's philosophy is different than the past and that it is clearly not a Hegelian system nor is it a series of Nietzschean aphorisms. Back to the point: the other beginning has this character of Time-Play-Space of the truth of Being as the projecting open. The opening (Lichtung) that allows the Time-Play-Space to be with beings. Heidegger is in dialogue with himself here. This is neither Nietzsche nor Schelling; and certainly not Hegel or Kant. However, in general, the thinkers in the background are Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Von Schelling (1775-1854), Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843), and perhaps deeper in the background is Ernst Jünger (1895-1998). Ernst said that his brother Friedrich Georg Jünger (1898-1977) was closer to Heidegger than himself. There is someone else that is very much part of this text -right up front is the other one that is some how unnamed and yet standing on every page – Heidegger's own thinking and writing before this attempt. Other philosophers and poets that are mentioned are the normal cast of characters for Heidegger, namely, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), Anaximander, Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911), Karl Jaspers (1883-1969), Heraclitus, Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Pindar, Rene Descartes (1596-1650), Emil Lask (1875-1915), Heinrich Rickert (1863-1936), Hermann Lotze (1817-1881), Nicolai Hartmann (1882-1950), Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814), Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr Von Leibniz (1646-1716) and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Plus, he mentions Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805), Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (17491832), Walter Gerlach (1889-1979), and Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841). But it seems that Heidegger quotes and references himself the most. This is self-reflexive and a self-dialogue with two great philosophers, Heidegger and Heidegger. In some cases, he poses questions and answers in his dialogue. How does Heidegger see the reader as a third partner in our dialogue? Should we just follow along where Heidegger is taking us or should we try to confront Heidegger with Heidegger? In some ways, it feels like Nietzsche's Ecce Homo, but it is much more than a self-review of Heidegger's own thinking to that date. 17 "The other beginning of thinking is named thus, not because it is simply shaped differently from any other arbitrarily chosen hitherto existing philosophies, but rather because it must be the only other beginning according to the relation to the one and only 104 first beginning. The style of thoughtful mindfulness in the crossing from one beginning to the other is also already determined by the allotment of the one beginning to the other beginning." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et p. 4). „Der andere Anfang des Denkens ist so genannt, nicht weil er nur andersförmig ist als beliebige andere bisherige Philosophien, sondern weil er der einzig andere aus dem Bezug zu dem einzig einen und ersten Anfang sein muss. Aus dieser Zugewiesenheit des einen und des anderen Anfangs zueinander ist auch schon die Art der denkerischen Besinnung im Übergang bestimmt." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (19361938) (GA 65, p. 5). What is the relationship between the first beginning of western philosophy (the Greeks) and the new, other beginning (Heidegger)? Heidegger is not just recasting the Greeks for the modern period and calling it a new beginning in philosophy. When Heidegger in another place speaks of the "end of philosophy and the task for thinking" and when he talks about the end of metaphysics, he is talking about the end of the first beginning. In more detail, he says that Platonism is the beginning of metaphysics and Nietzsche's reversal of Platonism is the final end of metaphysics (the omega of metaphysics). So, in a way, the formula would be Platonism is the first beginning and Heidegger is the new, other beginning for western philosophy. Heidegger is not saying that this is a new metaphysics or a new ontology; no, that is not it at all. The relationship between the two beginnings as seen from the new, other beginning can be expressed as one of Heidegger's beloved terms – Auseinandersetzung (a struggle-kampf, a critical debate and encounter, a fight between heavyweights). But this is neither a countermovement nor an antimovement to the first beginning. Heidegger wants to be free and clear of the first beginning. Has he made it? Has Heidegger twisted clear of the first beginning and metaphysics? As Heidegger expresses it in the title to section 87, "History of the first beginning (the history of metaphysics)." (GA 65 et., p. 123, G, p. 175). Back to the question: has Heidegger twisted clear of metaphysics? 18 "Because the other beginning (from within the truth of Sein) has become necessary? Why a beginning at all? (Cf. Überlegungen IV on the beginning and crossing.)." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et p. 40) „Weil der andere Anfang (aus der Wahrheit des Seins) notwendig geworden? Warum denn überhaupt Anfang? (Vgl. Überlegungen IV über Anfang und Übergang)." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 57). Here Heidegger references one of his own writings, Überlegungen IV (GA 94)(English translation might be Considerations). This series of notebooks is one of Heidegger's mostly closely kept writings. According to his son and main editor of the Gesamtausgabe, Dr. Hermann Heidegger, these will not be open for publication until at least 2005 and will be the last materials published in the collected writings. These are not part of any lecture series etc., but rather consist of some of Heidegger's most personal 105 philosophical reflections. In the Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis), Heidegger makes the most references to himself. This is clearly a self-reflexive dialogue that Heidegger has entered in with himself and his writings. Heidegger is writing this in the period of 1936-1938 with the handwritten version completed May, 1939. In the Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis), Heidegger makes references to over 15 volumes of the Gesamtausgabe (GA) that as of 2003 had not been published yet even in German. So, we have a way to go before we can read any of the Überlegungen (GA 94, 95, 96). Why has the other beginning become necessary? The basic question: why a beginning in general? What is behind and pushing toward another beginning? This is not something behind the world or outside of the world like the supersensuous. I think Heidegger is looking for a process within history (not human history). This again is related to the issue of Heidegger's own questioning of the truth of Being (Seyn), which relates to how Heidegger sees his own opening up to Being as part of the history of Being. If we have abandoned Being (or Being has abandoned itself) (Seinsverlassenheit) and now Heidegger is asking about Being, then Being is no longer abandoned. Perhaps it is not "we" nor Heidegger and neither one of us can merely talk about Being or ask about the truth of Being; then the sound of Being maybe heard and, all of sudden, Being itself is no longer abandoned. No, it is more complicated that just simply engaging in philosophical writing or with Heidegger in the Black Forest. I think Heidegger would say this is like the world stage. This is not Hegel's world-spirit (die Weltgeist), but hopefully you are getting the picture that it is more than just some empirical data or a news report ("Being has returned", newspaper headline). Back to the point: Heidegger is driving us back to the ground of why there is an "other beginning". Why a beginning at all? Why bring up this issue at all? Why not leave it in the background or un-discussed? Why did we have the first beginning with the Greek philosophers and now a new, other beginning? Why are there also ancient philosophical schools in India and China? Of course, there are the religions traditions that have background with philosophy – for example, Buddhism. What is the necessity that makes all of this happen? So then, the next question: has this time come again that the necessity of making (can we use that term here?) a new, other beginning must happen again in this epoch? Can we go ahead and live unexamined lives and not respond to the call of the asking the question (the question draws us) about the truth of Being? Heidegger even speaks of distress (Not, Notlosigkeit, Not-losigkeit) and specifically distress over the abandonment of Being (Seinsverlassenheit) (cf. GA 65, section 60). We are not thinking about something that occurred to Heidegger only and somehow relates to his personal theological or philosophical background. This is where Heidegger is trying to push aside and leave all metaphysical concepts and thinking behind. 19 "But this beginning first becomes enactable as the other beginning when the first beginning is put into critical encounter. Grasped inceptually, the beginning is Seyn itself." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et p. 41) 106 „Aber dieser Anfang wird erst vollziehbar als der andere in der Auseinandersetzung mit dem ersten. Der Anfang – anfänglich begriffnen – ist das Seyn selbst." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 58). It is only after we critically engage the first beginning and the entire historical course of philosophy and metaphysics, only after we have purified (Reinigung, section 110, section 26) these metaphysical concepts (this is not the negative sense of the "destruction" of history) and finished up the cleaning up of metaphysics in general. Heidegger spent many years working on the history of philosophy and so far most of his publications involve his Auseinandersetzung (critical encounter) with metaphysics. At times, Heidegger also talks about the struggle (Kampf). So, we must do the work of not just reading and thinking about the entire history of western thought, but we need to move in a critical way. This does not mean some ahistorical search for arguments and proofs. Heidegger's thinking seems to move beyond all of the standard methods of phenomenology or hermeneutics. What is the philosophical methodology here? This is a very complex question with regard to Heidegger. One point of interest is a remark he made about Kant, "Getting Kant right is to be left to Kant philology". I take that to mean that getting Kant right is not philosophy. What is the philosophical task for thinking? The second part here can be re-translated and re-thought along different lines. The other beginning – conceptualized provisionally – is Being itself. The means Heidegger's new term Being (Seyn) (not the metaphysical Being (Sein)) is the new, other beginning. The andere Anfang is Being itself. The other beginning is Being. This needs to be unpacked but packing it also makes it clearer. Heidegger said during a lecture course on Aristotle that the students should read Aristotle for 15 years before reading Nietzsche. In a discard draft by Nietzsche written for the section on "Why I Write Such Good Books" in Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is, Nietzsche said, "Usually, one must condense, or upset one's digestion; I have to be diluted, liquefied, mixed with water, else one upsets one's digestion." With Heidegger, we also need to take the long drink of water and rethink everything; only by this way do we watch where Heidegger is guiding us. Remember this is still a preparatory exercise and all future thinking is underway. But we need to engage Heidegger to follow Heidegger's own admonishment for thinking. Although we must be careful here, since Heidegger wrote in a letter to Medard Boss, dated February 21, 1971, Heidegger said, "I would like to dissuade you from the literature on Heidegger." (Zollikon Seminars, et. p. 290). That puts "us" in the middle. 20 "The other beginning has to be realized totally from within Seyn as enowning (Ereignis) and from the essential swaying of its truth and its [truth's] history (cf., e.g., the other beginning and its relationship to German Idealism)". (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et p. 41) 107 „Der andere Anfang muss ganz aus dem Seyn als Ereignis und der Wesung seiner Wahrheit und ihrer Geschichte erwirkt werden (vgl. z. B. der andere Anfang und sein Verhältnis zum deutschen Idealismus)." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (19361938) (GA 65, p. 58). In re-thinking this passage, we need to clear about the parts. The other beginning must be seen from the whole of Being as Ereignis, and the essence of its truth and its history. Also, we need to think of the other beginning and the relationship to German Idealism. Heidegger does not elaborate the connection with German Idealism and the context does not give any hints. But can we think this out without any kind of hint from Heidegger. This is very difficult since Heidegger's relationship to Fichte, early Schelling, Hegel and the later Schelling is complex; however, we know that Heidegger reacted against the whole issue of the absolute and the systems of metaphysics attempted by almost of all of German Idealism (except Schelling writing on human freedom). Later on, in section 104 of the Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) on German Idealism, Heidegger says, "There is no bridge (Brücke) from here to the other beginning." (GA 65, p. 203, et. p.142). Heidegger is the farthest from Hegel's metaphysics. In some ways, Heidegger is still part of the countermovement to the great Hegelian metaphysical system. Hegel's famous essay at the beginning of the Science of Logic, begins with the title is "With What Must the Science Begin?" (Wissenschaft der Logik, "Womit muss der Anfang der Wissenschaft gemacht werden?"). This essay is the exact opposite of what Heidegger wants to accomplish. "Remember," Heidegger said," to place Hegel's system in the commanding view and then to think in a totally opposite direction. ("Hegels Systematik in den beherrschenden Blick bringen und doch ganz entgegengesetzt denken." GA 65, p.176). This is Heidegger's counterpunch to the Hegelian metaphysical system. Is Hegel still standing? Yes – but weakening. Hegel said at the beginning of his major philosophical work, the Science of Logic, "With What Must the Science Begin?", "It is only in recent times that thinkers have become aware of the difficulty of finding a beginning in philosophy, and the reason for this difficulty and also the possibility of resolving it has been much discussed. What philosophy begins with must be either mediated or immediate, and it is easy to show that it can be neither the one nor the other; thus either way of beginning is refuted." Heidegger has radically transformed Hegel's question. Perhaps Heidegger did not even have this question in mind, but it certainly came to the forefront of my mind that this was indeed a link. Hegel has the absolute hidden in the background but not too deeply. Remember, the absolute already is given completely a priori. In a general sense, if you go along with Hegel's starting point (beginning) he has you locked into his system. Question: if we go along with Heidegger's new, other beginning are we locked into being Heideggerians? Can we ask the question "what is the truth of Seyn?" and not end up as some kind of Heideggerian? Can we twist free of Heidegger's starting point (new beginning) and still be doing non-metaphysical post-modern philosophy? This kind of thinking (Er-denken, 108 Inbegrifflichkeit, anfängliche Denken) is for those who come but once (GA 65, section 1). 21 "In the domain of the other beginning there is neither "ontology" nor "metaphysics" in general. (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et p. 41) „Im Bereich des anderen Anfangs gibt es weder "Ontologie" noch überhaupt "Metaphysik". (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 59). In this passage Heidegger is making it clear that the new, other beginning is not connected to ontology or at least one version, namely, Hermann Lotze's (1817-1881) version of ontology as one discipline among others (GA 65 section 14). Of course, Heidegger wants to move beyond and overcome metaphysics, so the new, other beginning is not linked to metaphysics. Metaphysics never moves beyond beings or beingness, so in the new beginning Heidegger asks about the truth of Seyn (Being of beings) and metaphysics can not follow in his path of thinking. In other words, unchain ontology from metaphysical thinking. Heidegger is making his thinking the condition and limits set for the other beginning. What is this domain (Bereich) for Heidegger where there is no traditional ontology and no metaphysics in general? Is this the Kantian version of a critique (limits, possibilities, bounds, outlines, Vorriss)? Is a "domain" a place and a spatial location in ahistorical time? I think this is a case where Heidegger is not thinking historical enough. Nietzsche points out that philosophers lack a historical sense (Twilight of Idols: or How one Philosophizes with a Hammer, section "Reason"in Philosophy"). Nietzsche's tuning fork may have touched Heidegger on this one, because Heidegger is attempting to step over his own shadow here. He can try, but does not make it over the shadow. Heidegger does say it is important to jump over one's own shadow. Sometimes Heidegger mentions the work of Nicolai Hartmann who writes about ontology in the 20th century, but who according to Heidegger has it all wrong. For Heidegger, Hartmann is an ersatz straw man; he does not even quote him but merely throws in a sharp remark for good measure. Clearly the Hartmann version of ontology is not where Heidegger is guiding us to and also ontology not as discipline (cf. Lotze). Heidegger wants to stop ontology from becoming henology. How many rivers have you stepped in twice? Was it the same river? Yes, of course – so much for naming and language. 22 "When "decision" comes to stand over against "system", then that is the crossing from modernity into the other beginning. (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et p. 62) 109 „Wenn die "Entscheidung" gegen das "System" zu stehen kommt, dann ist das der Übergang aus der Neuzeit in den anderen Anfang.." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 89). The other beginning is after the crossing from modernity (Neuzeit, new time) and this will happen when the final decision is made against the "system" in general. Heidegger at some level equates the Hegelian "absolute system" and systems in general with metaphysics. At a later time Heidegger will think the essence of metaphysics is nihilism, but the paw of the tiger (metaphysics) is as an absolute system. Metaphysics at its highest point, in its greatest manifestation is as the absolute system. Metaphysics as the highest point of the wave is the Hegelian system. This is given greater detail in Heidegger's Schelling book (GA 42). Heidegger is contra the absolute metaphysics system. But Heidegger wants to be twisted free of all metaphysics and leave metaphysics behind in a complete sense. The notion of system is just the point of making the decision before crossing over. The point of the decision is when thinking moves from beings and beingness to the question of the meaning (Sinn von Sein) of Being or the truth of Being (Seyn). This does not mean we throw out a "system" or think in some unsystematic way, but rather, that we lay the grounding foundations of all beings in a more original way (note this is not a transcendental structure or grounding). If we can bring the decision against "systems" as such, then the crossing will be made at this time over to the domain of the other beginning. Kant and then Hegel brought the system and Reason together in a speculative identity. At this point Heidegger does attack Reason, but it is clearly part of his overall critical encounter with metaphysics. This is not an irrational position, but for Heidegger thinking is clearly not Reasoning (specifically in the narrow sense of Reason). Heidegger and Nietzsche are both clear on this point – philosophical thinking is not Reasoning. Some of this appears in Nietzsche's in Twilight of Idols: or How one Philosophizes with a Hammer, "Reason in Philosophy", but there are many other similar remarks in Nietzsche. The question is: has this news come to modern philosophy (where they still teach the real philosophical thinking in a logic course)? Heidegger is finding a middle ground between systematic phenomenological research (like Being and Time; perhaps the extreme case of Hegel) and the approach of Nietzsche to write in the form of the aphorism. Nietzsche's aphorisms are a philosophical methodology that makes a point of the nature of philosophical thinking, but Heidegger does not want to follow Nietzsche down this path. On the other hand, Heidegger does not follow Hegel and it seems he no longer wants to go down the path of Being and Time with the phenomenological methodology. As already noted, Heidegger has a problem with the concept of a philosophical written work (Werke). He is only on the way, not yet there, so we do not have such a thing as a philosophical written work (Werke). Heidegger has found a middle path between Hegel (system) and Nietzsche (aphorisms) in terms of general methods. He also writes essays, articles, dialogues, and poems. But consider what Nietzsche said, "the methods, one must say it ten times, are what is essential. " (The Antichrist, section 59, "die Methoden, man muss es zehnmal sagen, sind das Wesentliche"). 110 Heidegger sees Hölderlin as the one who has "poeticized the furthest ahead"(GA 65, section 105). But Heidegger does not elucidate his own poetry or Nietzsche's poetry; instead, he sees the connection between poetry and his own philosophical thinking. What is the connection between Heidegger's new kind of thinking (Er-denken, Inbegrifflichkeit, anfängliche Denken) and poetry? Specific poetry does not seem to be a large part of the Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis); however, Hölderlin is an essential part of the project but not any of his specific poetry. It seems that Hölderlin is always a part of Heidegger's project. Although even after reading Heidegger's work on Hölderlin it is not clear why Hölderlin, must be a part of Heidegger's project. Back to the question: has the time come to decide against system as such? I think the answer is "yes". Do we all agree? Do not worry we are not making speculative judgments on history. 23 "The burden of thinking in the other beginning of philosophy is different: It is Er-denken that which is enowned as enowning itself; it is to bring Seyn into the truth of its essential swaying. However, because Seyn becomes enowning in the other beginning, the echo of Seyn must also be history, must pass though history by an essential shock, and must know and at the same time be able to say the moment of this history." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et p. 75-76) „Anders ist im anderen Anfang der Philosophie die Last des Denkens: das Er-denken dessen, was sich ereignet als das Ereignis selbst, das Seyn in die Wahrheit seiner Wesung bringen. Weil aber im anderen Anfang das Seyn Ereignis wird, muss auch der Anklang des Seyns Geschichte sein, die Geschichte in einer wesentlichen Erschütterung durchmachen und den Augenblick dieser Geschichte zugleich wissen und sagen können."(Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 108). We can translate Er-denken as en-thinking or enthinking. But this does not get at the sense of a kind or type of thinking that leads us on to Ereignis. In the other beginning Being as Seyn becomes Ereignis. This Being of beings as Seyn is the truth of Being (Seyn), which is Heidegger's expression of his own philosophical thinking. Remember the real title of Heidegger's writing project is Vom Ereignis. Seyn als Ereignis. In the next part of the passage Heidegger is bringing his seynsgeschichtliche Denken (translated as being-historical thinking) into play. Aside: seynsgeschichtliche Denken still has a sense of Nietzsche about it. Hegel and Nietzsche were historical thinkers each in their own way (also Wilhelm Dilthey), but Heidegger brings this to the forefront in a different light. This passage is an example of seynsgeschichtliche Denken in action. The echo or Anklang of Being is part history and it is a shock to this moment in history. Again, what is the historical location of Heidegger's own philosophical questioning? Heidegger is himself a person in history; he is historical. This is not just Heidegger, but it is the age or epoch itself that is driving the distress to push its point in history. Why is 111 this a burden (German=Die Last) for us? Is this a heavy burden? Being as Ereignis is too heavy for Da-Sein. It weighs us down. Do we need to become a Heideggerian version of the overman (superman) to handle this burden? Heidegger says this is different in the other beginning, since Being as Ereignis shocks and breaks history into two parts: the first beginning and the new, other beginning to philosophy (or thinking). Where is history after Heidegger? Do we have some kind of historical relativism? Remember Nietzsche said, "The thinker. – he is a thinker that means, he knows how to make things simpler than they are. "(Gay Science, "la gaya scienza" Book Three, #189). Even though Heidegger wrote a great deal, that does not mean that he made anything overly complex, for in fact, he made it simpler than it really is in thought. 24 "Therefore this "idealistic" and moralistic interpretation of nihilism remains provisional, in spite of its importance. Directed toward the other beginning, nihilism must be grasped (begriffen) more fundamentally as the essential consequence (Wesensfolge) of the abandonment of being (Seinsverlassenheit)." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 96). „Deshalb bleibt diese "idealistische" und moralische Auslegung des Nihilismus trotz ihrer Wesentlichkeit vorläufig. In der Absicht auf den anderen Anfang muss der Nihilismus gründlicher als Wesensfolge der Seinsverlassenheit begriffen werden." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 138). Heidegger is attacking the more typical Nietzschean position. Nietzsche himself viewed much of what he was doing was anti-Christian morality. For example, Nietzsche said in his autobiography, Ecce Homo ("Why I am Destiny", #7), "Have I been understood? – What defines me, what sets me apart from the rest of humanity is that I uncovered Christian morality. "Nietzsche's whole project of the revaluation of all values can be seen within the horizon of his attempt to engage in the transformation of morality and this is certainly more in line with the "standard" reading of Nietzsche. Heidegger is attacking the "standard" reading of Nietzsche's position of the idealist and moralistic reading of nihilism. Heidegger has a deeper reading of nihilism as the essence of the history of metaphysics. Therefore, Heidegger adds the second part to this passage by bringing into the play the abandonment or forgetting (forgetting is not to be meant as human and not as subjective reading) of Being through the other beginning. One can then see nihilism as a consequence of the Seinsverlassenheit. But this is tied to the other beginning. We can say that it is through the other beginning that one can see the whole issue of the abandonment of Being of beings (Seinsverlassenheit). This is not beingness (Seiendheit) as thought by metaphysics. Heidegger points out the abandonment of being (Seinsverlassenheit). Does that mean that Being is no longer abandoned? Where does Heidegger stand with the new, other beginning? Does he make it in a new domain? 25 112 "But the playing-forth (Zuspiel) of the history of the first-ever-inceptual thinking, however, is not an historical [historische] addendum to and a portending of a "new" "system" but rather is in itself essentially a transformation-initiating preparation for the other beginning." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p.119) „Das Zuspiel der Geschichte des erstanfänglichen Denkens ist aber keine historische Beiund Vorgabe zu einem "neuen" "System", sondern in sich die wesentliche, Verwandlung anstossende Vorbereitung des anderen Anfangs." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 169). We need to do a re-reading of this statement in English through a different set of eyes. The forward-playing of history in the first inceptual thinking is a transformation in preparation for the other beginning. Right at the beginning of this writing project, in fact in section 1 (GA65, p. 5, et. p. 4). Heidegger uses the expression, "the Time-Play-Space is the general opening of the truth of Being" (des Zeit-Spiel-Raumes der Wahrheit des Seyns). The above passage starts with the forward-playing of history (Zuspiel) with the first inceptual thinking. But again Heidegger tells us this not a constructing of a new "system" in philosophy. This is certainly not the construction of new worldview that includes the other beginning as the next school of philosophy to be taught at universities and conferences. Why did Sartre go in this direction? Heidegger went in another direction. How does thinking drive the playing of history toward a direction that has nothing to do with the latest headlines and the need for a story to have an ending? What is the story of metaphysics? Nietzsche gave us one with his vision of "How the 'True World' Finally Become a Fable: The history of an Error"(Twilight of Idols: or How one Philosophizes with a Hammer). How can we get underway with the "essentially a transformation-initiating preparation for the other beginning"? It is related to the Zuspiel of history of inceptual thinking. This is getting us ready during the time of transition or crossing (Zeitalter des Übergangs). This is getting our (not personal) thinking ready for the other beginning. Even in this writing we can tell that the subjective aspect of metaphysics still govern us in our attempt to move beyond all of the subjective-objective thinking. Inceptual thinking thinks the other beginning as the epoch of the play of history. How do we know this is not a new system or a new world view or just a new philosophical position that includes some new, other beginning that is just really a rebaked Greek or German philosophy? Asking about the new beginning makes sense for Hegel, but what about Kant? Kant wants to lay the foundations pre-metaphysical for a 'metaphysics of metaphysics' (Letter to Marcus Herz (May 11, 1781); but the actual beginning of such a project does not seem to be at issue for Kant. Kant always wanted to start with Reason. But this was not because Kant had some personal need to start with Reason. We would say it was in the air at the time. Heidegger would say it was the destiny of Being as Reason for the epoch. This was the age of reason and rationality. 26 113 "85. The Originality (Primordially) Coming-into-Its-Own of the First Beginning Means Gaining a Foothold in the Other Beginning. " (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p.120). „85. Die ursprüngliche Zueignung des ersten Anfangs bedeutet das Fussfassen im anderen Anfang." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 171). Heidegger declares the title of this section to be about the relationship between the first and the other beginning. Philosophy must work toward obtaining the new, other beginning; this may take a very long time. The shadow of God may play on the cave wall for thousands of years (Nietzsche). The first beginning viewed from Heidegger's thinking encompasses the whole of the Greek beginning. This is not an ahistorical reading of some Greek philosophers to see what their little arguments are about or a proof of some statements. Heidegger is seeing the Greeks from historical thinking of the entire western tradition; he sees the big picture and what the real implications are for the thinking of Being (Seyn). How did the first beginning start with thought? Why did the great German thinkers not really encounter the Greeks? The great German thinkers like: Hölderlin, Hegel, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), Schelling, and Nietzsche – who each in their own way opened a special relationship to the Greeks, but not like Heidegger. Heidegger opens up the unthought in Greek thinkers. This does not mean we need to "study" the Greeks. Rather, Heidegger has considered the entire metahistory of Being, metaphysics, and philosophy in a radical way. Heidegger wants to create a narrow footbridge toward getting that foothold in the domain of the other beginning. Thinking wants to gain a foothold in the new, other beginning. How can we get there? Assuming there is some 'reason' to reject metaphysics, why not embrace the "system"? Heidegger proclaims in the first section, "The time of "systems" is over." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 4). Should we say "systasis, systema, or synistemi"? Metaphysics is considered ontotheological with the highest point being the "absolute system". So, should we accept or reject the idea of the "system"? But this is not like deciding on orange juice for breakfeast, since the historical epoche has already brought the end of the "system". For Hegel, philosophers come afterward in history, but for Heidegger, philosophers are in the moment and the now – and can build those bridges toward a new beginning. 27 "What this question wants to achieve is not the clarification and thus rigidifying of the hitherto necessarily confused ideas of "metaphysics" but rather the thrust into the crossing and thereby the knowing awareness that any kind of metaphysics has and must come to an end, if philosophy is to attain its other beginning.' (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 121). „Was diese Frage erzielen will, ist nicht die Aufklärung und d. h. Festerhaltung der bisherigen und dazu notwendig verwirrten Vorstellung von der „Metaphysik", sondern ist 114 der Stoss in den Übergang und damit in das Wissen, dass jede Art von Metaphysik zu Ende ist und sein muss, wenn die Philosophie ihren anderen Anfang gewinnen soll." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 172). Ok, we need to reject metaphysics and not spend time sorting out the true nature of metaphysics and polishing our understanding of metaphysics. That is why Heidegger says "any kind" of metaphysics. We need to nail metaphysics on the head and end it; only then, should philosophy attain its other beginning. This is not the simple overcoming of metaphysics, but rather, we need to end metaphysics. Some important parts of metaphysics are the concept of value metaphysics, the system, constructing a world view, the absolute, the will, reason, eternal truths, ideas, ideals, Being as universal, Platonism, etc. Philosophy needs to attain its other beginning! 28 "The talk of the end of metaphysics should not mislead us into believing that philosophy is finished with "metaphysics". On the contrary: In its essential impossibility metaphysics must now first be played-forth into philosophy; and philosophy itself must be played over into its other beginning. If we ponder this task of the other beginning (the question of the "meaning" of Seyn in the formulation of Being and Time), then it will also become clear that all attempts that react against metaphysics – which is everywhere idealistic, even as positivism – persist in being re-active and thus are in principle dependent upon metaphysics and thereby remain themselves metaphysics." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p.122). „Die Rede vom Ende der Metaphysik darf nicht zur Meinung verleiten, die Philosophie sein mit der „Metaphysik" fertig, im Gegenfall: diese muss ihr jetzt erst in ihrer Wesensunmöglichkeit zugespielt und die Philosophie selbst so in ihren anderen Anfang hinübergespielt werden. Überdenken wir diese Aufgabe des anderen Anfangs (die Frage nach dem „Sinn" des Seyns in der Fromel von „Sein und Zeit"), dann wird auch deutlich, dass alle Versuche, die gegen die Metaphysik, die überall – auch als Positivismus – idealistisch ist, reagieren, eben re-aktiv und damit von der Metaphysik grundsätzlich abhängig und somit selbst Metaphysik bleiben." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 173). Heidegger wants us to still deal with metaphysics and work through the whole nature of metaphysics to know before we overcome it and finish it off once and for all. Our relationship to metaphysics is at different stages; on one hand, we need to go through it and work on the purification (Reinigung, section 110, section 26) of metaphysics, and on the other hand, our goal is clear – overcome metaphysics and try to wipe out the conceptual metaphysics from our thinking. Of course, this means overcoming nihilism and all goals positing, and the transformation of values (revaluation or transvaluation of 115 all values). Morality is out the door as a metaphysical project. Theology as a metaphysical project is done. The second part of passage means that Heidegger sees that his attempt at asking the meaning (or sense) of Being (Sinn von Sein) in Being and Time, is indeed part of task of philosophy to work toward the other beginning. So, Heidegger even links his first attempt in Being and Time (1927) as his way toward the other beginning. Thus, Heidegger's reading of the early Heidegger even points toward the other beginning in philosophy. I am not sure this was clear to Heidegger in 1927, but here in the timeframe of 1936-1939, Heidegger is looking backward to 1927 and sees his thinking of Being and Time as connected with the other beginning. Heidegger said that perhaps Being and Time was too far, too fast, but still it is connected to the other beginning. In the third part of this passage, Heidegger is telling us that all of these counter-movements to metaphysics, all of these thrusts against metaphysics, all of the antimetaphysics, contra-metaphysics, that is, all of these reactions to metaphysics are still "caught" in the web and sphere/domain of metaphysics. Karl Marx (1818-1883) is still caught in the metaphysics of Hegel in his attempt to react against Hegel (turn him on his head). Søren Kierkegaard is totally caught by the Hegelian system. Nietzsche is, above all, still caught inside metaphysics as Platonism even in his reversal of Platonism. How many philosophers are still in the web of neo-Kantianism? Most philosophers are still within the horizon of value metaphysics and the attempts to construct some kind of a worldview. We need to break out of metaphysics and those old tired concept-mummies left behind by so many philosophers. 29 "The crossing to the other beginning introduces a caesura (Scheidung) that long since no longer runs along with directions of philosophy (idealism – realism, etc.) or even along with attitudes of "worldview" (Weltanschauung). The crossing separates the emerging of Seyn and its truth-grounding in Dasein from any occurring and perceiving of beings." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 124). „Der Übergang zum anderen Anfang vollzieht eine Scheidung, die längst nicht mehr zwischen Richtungen der Philosophie (Idealismus – Realismus u. s. f.) oder gar zwischen Haltungen der „Weltanschauung" verläuft. Der Übergang scheidet die Heraufkunft des Seyns und dessen Wahrheitsgründung im Dasein von allem Vorkommen und Vernehmen des Seienden." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 177). The caesura is a breaking point and a long breath of air, a cut that is a pause. This crossing (Übergang) and transition to the other beginning is not some kind of –ism, idealism, realism, positivism, empiricalism, scientism, anthropomorphism, humanism, determinism, existentialism, fatalism, pantheism, materialism, naturalism, skepticism, or metaphysical-ism. All of these –isms are not true to the matters themselves and are all part of the past historical schools of philosophy. This may help to pigeonhole philosophers and philosophical positions, but in fact, it has nothing to do with thinking. 116 The "easy" way of thinking is by putting philosophers into a box and then you can close the box and throw it out. Heidegger makes the point again and again that this is not constructing some kind of worldview (Weltanschauung). Philosophy is not constructing a worldview. Think of this point in all of the humanities. Kant's critique of pure reason project is looking to put bounds and limits on reason in the same way Heidegger is saying that by not constructing a worldview – philosophy has bounds and limits that drive philosophy through the squeezing point of not doing a worldview. The right worldview is that philosophy asks questions and it not giving out "answers" or directions or a manual on how one should live your life. We are the point of the "crossing". In the second part of this passage the context is that the crossing is not looking toward beings, but rather, Being and the truth, which is grounded in our being-open to the Being of beings. In Hegel's Science of Logic, Being (Sein) is given as mediated. The question of the truth of Being does not arise in Hegel, since with Hegel everything is already given to us as philosophers following the process. 30 "The other beginning experiences the truth of Seyn and inquires into the Seyn of truth in order first to ground the essential swaying of Seyn and to let beings as the true of that originary truth spring forth." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p.126). „Der andere Anfang erfährt die Wahrheit des Seyns und fragt nach dem Seyn der Wahrheit, um so erst die Wesung des Seyns zu gründen und das Seiende als das Wahre jener ursprünglichen Wahrheit entspringen zu lassen." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 179). Here Heidegger is stressing the point of the other beginning and the experience (erfährt) of the truth of Being (Seyn). What this allows is that the decisive essence of Being lets beings come forth as beings within the truth of Being. However, this truth is not the correspondence theory of truth. But rather, it is truth in Heidegger's sense of unhiddenness, unconcealment (Unverborgenheit); and in other words as they say in Greek – aletheia. Truth happens. Heidegger says, "In the first beginning truth (as unconcealment) is the mark of beings"(GA 65, section 91). The point about beings here is that they are more than mere objects to be measured, exploited, and wrapped up in technology (En-framing, Ge-Stell). This "thinking about" beings needs to be more inline with the truth of or meaning of Being. But this "inline" is not a limiting process but rather a gathering up and a springing forth in a greater throwing open to unlimited possibility. 31 "The other beginning is the leaping into Seyn's more original (primordial) truth." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et.p. 128). 117 „Der andere Anfang ist der das Seyn verwandelnde Einsprung in seine ursprünglichere Wahrheit." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 183). I think this is clear that the new, other beginning is a spring and leap into Being (Seyn) as its more original (primordial) truth (ursprünglichere Wahrheit). The question "what is the truth of Being" leads Heidegger to think the nature of "truth" in a deeper way and to a question that has not been thought by western metaphysics. Heidegger is making the point that other beginning is tied to a more primordial truth of Being (Seyn). This has been thought out of the earlier question of the meaning or sense of Being (Sinn von Sein). 32 "But this is what the other beginning wants to and must achieve: leaping into the truth of Seyn so that Seyn itself grounds humanness – not even immediately, but rather grounds humanness (Menschsein) primarily as a consequence of, and as allotment to, Da-sein." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 129). „Dieses aber ist es, was der andere Anfang leisten will und leisten muss: den Einsprung in die Wahrheit des Seyns, dergestalt, dass dieses selbst das Menschsein gründet und zwar nicht einmal unmittelbar, sondern das Menschsein erst als eine Folge der und als die Angewiesenheit auf das Da-sein." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 184). My re-reading of this passage is: the other beginning must and will achieve? This leap is the truth of Being (Seyn), this grounds humanness, but not as immediate; rather, humanness as consequence and allotment from Da-sein (there-being, being open to the openness that is Being and humans). I think the word "will" is in fact a slip by Heidegger I do not think he meant anything like the metaphysical expression of "will" from Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. As more of Heidegger's writings are published I think we will learn more about the transformation of the one the Heidegger's key words – Dasein, Da-sein, Da-Sein, etc. This word has been untranslatable in Heidegger's usage from the very early attempts to translate Heidegger from German into English. He was upset with the translation of Dasein into French. In addition, he seems to have reused the word after Being and Time to be sure it was always written Da-sein or Da-Sein or even possibly Da-Seyn. Kant used the expression "Dasein" to refer to general existence and normally in the sense of objects. Da-sein means there-being, being open to the openness that is Being and humans. We could use the terms of self-consciousness or humans or man or mankind; but only if we could take out all meanings of anything personal or "subjective". The problem in a nutshell is that all of these expressions bring with them the sense of something "subjective". Think of a concept without an overtone of the "subjective". This is Heidegger's problem. He likes the word Da-sein, since he can connect it to Sein with the expression Da-Sein (there open to Being). Therefore, the other beginning grounds humanness for a leap into the truth of Being. Da-sein is that opening which has the 118 question of Being as a question (see sections GA 65, 168-203). In contrast to Being and Time, here Da-sein is more a possibility than a structure. 33 "Leaping into the other beginning is returning into the first beginning, and vice versa. Returning into the first beginning (the "retrieval"), however, is not displacement into what has passed, as if this could be made "actual" or "real" (wirklich) again in the usual sense." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 130). „Der Einsprung in den anderen Anfang ist der Rückgang in den ersten und umgekehrt. Rückgang in den ersten Anfang (die „Wieder-holung") ist aber keine Versetzung in Vergangenes, als könnte dieses im gewöhnlichen Sinne wieder „wirklich" gemacht werden." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 185). We can leap into the other beginning by a thoughtful return in the first beginning. This means that a jump into Greek thought will help us toward the new, other beginning. Heidegger is pointing us toward Greek thought when all was fresh and philosophical thought was only thinking. It had not become something called philosophy or metaphysics. It had not gone through the schools or become Platonism. But Heidegger brings us back by the statement that this does not mean that this kind of Greek thought will be real again. Rather, it is the freshness of the Greek thinking as it was at the beginning. Note that this is pre-Christian thinking, pre-metaphysical thinking, and this means pre-all-isms (before all of the –isms were created). Did Aristotle call Anaximander a neo-realist? See the difference? This fresh thinking will help us with the new, other beginning. On the other hand, Heidegger also goes on in this section (GA 65, section 91) to speak about the "distant positioning" (Fernstellung). This is not just rebaking the Greek thinking to come up with a new beginning. There is a distance between us (and Heidegger) and the greatest of the fresh Greek thinking at the first beginning of western thought. Of course, we could re-read and re-think the Greeks until we are blue in the face and still not come up with what Heidegger is doing with the Greeks. Heidegger's greatnest is not because of some scholarly reading of philosophical treatises. At every point, Heidegger is attempting a unique and driving force in thinking with western thought. This inimitable thinking is what makes us get underway with Heidegger's thought. Heidegger says at the beginning of this writing, "those who are but once" (GA 65, section 1). Heidegger is but once. 34 "And only this knowing awareness plays forth to us the necessity of preparing the other beginning and, by unfolding this preparedness, of experiencing the own most distress (eigenste Not) in its full light, the abandonment of Being (Seinsverlassenheit), which, deeply hidden, is the mirror-play (Widerspiel) to that not-happening and which therefore cannot be explained according to today's and yesterday's abuses and omissions." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 130). 119 „Und erst dieses Wissen spielt uns die Notwendigkeit zu, den anderen Anfang vorzubereiten und in der Ausfaltung dieser Bereitschaft die eigenste Not in ihrer vollen Helle zu erfahren, die Seinsverlassenheit, die tief verborgen das Widerspiel ist zu jenem Nichtgeschehen und keineswegs daher aus heutigen und gestrigen Missständen und Versäumnissen erklärt werden kann." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (19361938) (GA 65, p. 186). The concept of "distress" (die Not) is important for Heidegger's entire project, but wait -is this just Heidegger's problem? Heidegger says, "The highest distress: the distress of lack of distress" (Die höchste Not: die Not der Notlosigkeit) (GA 65, section 50). Our distress is over the abandonment of Being (Seinsverlassenheit) but this is not something that gets much play in the latest newspapers (headline: "Being is lost"). Only by taking to heart this distress can we prepare for the new, other beginning. Has the new, other beginning happened or is it just a possibility? Is Heidegger that possibility or has Heidegger opened up the question of the truth of Being (Seyn) and is pointing toward the future of thinking? 35 "The other beginning is not counter-directed (Gegenrichtung) to the first. But rather, as the other it stands outside the counter [Gegen] and outside immediate comparability." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 131). Der andere Anfang ist nicht die Gegenrichtung zum ersten, sondern steht als anderes ausserhalb des Gegen und der unmittelbaren Vergleichbarkeit. (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p.187). In this passage Heidegger is clarifying the relationship between the first beginning and the new, other beginning. Heidegger's other beginning is not anti-Greek or antiPlatonism. Instead Heidegger is trying to make the other beginning outside of any previous beginnings. Where is the new, other beginning standing? What is its location? Can it stand by itself without depending on any outside support? Heidegger's dwelling in the unfolding of the other beginning is what makes Heidegger's singular thought afresh. 36 "In commencing preparedness for crossing from the end of the first beginning into the other beginning, it is not as if man simply enters a "period" that has not yet been, but it is rather that man enters a whole other domain of history (Bereich der Geschichte). The end of the first beginning will for a long time still encroach upon crossing (Übergang), yes, even upon the other beginning." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 161). „Mit dem Anheben der Bereitschaft für den Übergang aus dem Ende des ersten Anfangs in den anderen Anfang tritt der Mensch nicht etwa nur in eine noch nicht gewesene „Periode", sondern in einen ganz anderen Bereich der Geschichte. Das Ende des ersten 120 Anfangs wird noch in langer Zeit übergreifen in den Übergang, ja sogar in den anderen Anfang." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 227). So, this is not case that we are in a different "period" or epoch or that we have made some improvement in mankind (cf. Twilight of Idols: or How one Philosophizes with a Hammer section 'The 'Improvers' of Mankind') – no that is not my goal. This does not mean some kind of "progress" in mankind toward the overman (Übermenschen, this German word can be translated into English with the expression: superman, overman, over-man, beyond man, above man, or man-beyond, trans-man). Heidegger wants us to enter a wholly other domain of history. The other beginning means also the other domain of history. We are still stuck with working through the end of the first beginning. It will not be a clean break; it will take a long time before we will have a clean break between the first beginning and Heidegger's new, other beginning. The first beginning is still part of our thinking and we are in history even though we are in the process of thinking through the first beginning to get to the new, other beginning. It still is a process of thought. 37 "The "fundamental-ontological" mindfulness (laying the foundation of ontology as its overcoming (Überwindung) is crossing from the end of the first beginning toward the other beginning. But this crossing is at the same time the take-off for the leap (Sprung), by which alone a beginning and specifically the other beginning, as constantly overtaken by the first – can begin." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 162). „Die "fundamentalontologische" Besinnung (Grundlegung der Ontologie als ihre Überwindung) ist der Übergang aus dem Ende des ersten Anfangs zum anderen Anfang. Dieser Übergang aber ist zugleich der Anlauf für den Sprung, durch den allein ein Anfang und zumal der andere, als ständig überholter vom ersten, anfangen kann." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 228-229). Here Heidegger is referring to fundamental-ontological as he developed the notion in Being and Time in 1927. This idea is laying the ground for the overcoming of ontology in general. So, Heidegger is making a point here that he is not just doing fundamental ontology as some project within ontology as such; but rather, he is headed for the overcoming of the narrow sense of ontology as perceived by all previous metaphysicians above all by Hegel in the Science of Logic where metaphysical ontology reaches its zenith and high point, and where theology and ontology reach their total fusion in the dialectical movement of the absolute spirit. Heidegger's earlier project of Being and Time is now seen as the crossing and transition from the first beginning to the other beginning. The leap can now be seen as a way for the other beginning to start and for it to overtake the first beginning. 121 Where is Kant in Heidegger's project now? It seems that Kant has been left behind – although Kant took a decisive step after the Greek, it seems that Nietzsche and even Hegel are important now in the project of the other beginning. Certainly not in their doctrines as followed, but as opponents. ("Such thinking never lets itself become a doctrine..." (GA 65, Section 2). Hegel is the opponent. Nietzsche helps with defining the first beginning and the project of overcoming of metaphysics. Schelling gives Heidegger help on the role of freedom and the last gods. Hölderlin is helping forward toward the future (he could have played a bigger role). Ernst Jünger is helping the project in terms of the current total mobilization and technicity (GA 65, section 74). Now we need to go "Back to Kant." Where is Kant in this project? Heidegger no longer wants to make moves at the foundational level – at least not in the Kantian sense of foundations. 38 "What is entirely other in the other beginning, in comparison to the first beginning, can be clarified by a saying that seems only to play with a turning around whereas in truth all is transformed (wandelt). " (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p.162). „Das ganz Andere des anderen Anfangs gegen den ersten lässt sich verdeutlichen durch ein Sagen, das scheinbar nur mit einer Umkehrung spielt, während in Wahrheit sich alles wandelt." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 229). In the passage Heidegger is answering the critical remark that somehow the first beginning and other beginning are just some simple play of rhetoric that we have to turn around the first beginning into the new, other beginning. Take some ideas from the Greeks and re-do them with some modern ontology and you have Heidegger's other beginning. No, this is what Heidegger is telling us that this is not what is going on with his thinking on the new, other beginning. This is more radical project; that is why he says at the end of this passage that all (alles) is transformed by the radical new, other beginning. 39 "But in the other beginning beings carry the clearing into which they are placed, which clearing (Lichtung) holds sway as clearing for self-sheltering and concealing, i.e., Being (Seyn) as enowning (Ereignis)." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p.162). „Im anderen Anfang aber ist das Seiende, damit es die Lichtung, in die es hereinsteht, zugleich trage, welche Lichtung west als Lichtung des Sichverbergens, d.h. des Seyns als Ereignis." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 230). The other beginning is beings which are placed in the clearing and this clearing as clearing, which is self-sheltering and concealing, that is, Being as Ereignis. So, beings are brought into the clearing and that clearing is Being as Ereignis. Or, beings are in the clearing through the event of Ereignis. This event, this happening is the truth of Being 122 (Seyn) where Da-Seyn is in a relationship with Time, Being, and history (domain of history). The opening is the clearing. 40 "Therefore in the other beginning of thinking, as Being (Seyn) is experienced as enowning, such that this experience, as arising, transforms all relations to "what is" (Seienden, beings). (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 175). „Deshalb wird im anderen Anfang des Denkens das Seyn als Ereignis erfahren, so zwar, dass diese Erfahrung als Erspringung alle Bezüge zum "Seienden" wandelt." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 248). The other beginning is this thinking of Being (Seyn) as Ereignis as this transforms all beings. Can we try the German expression of Ereignis-Denken? Heidegger has a writing project that will be published as GA 73 Zum Ereignis-Denken (1937). What kind of thinking is this? Heidegger speaks about so many different kinds of thinking: for example, anfängliche Denken (inceptual thinking), Er-denken (En-thinking), Inbegrifflichkeit (ingrasping), Gedanken-gang (thinking underway), and seynsgeschichtliche Denken (Being historical thinking). What are we to make of all of these different types of thinking? Is Heidegger pointing toward an "answer" for the methodology question? Hegel's conceptual thinking (a metaphysical fusion of subjective and objective) is the perfect counter-example for Heidegger on this issue. Also, this is certainly not representational thinking. 41 "Therefore, thinking as inceptual is the other beginning and also is capable of coming into the remote nearness of the last God (letzten Gottes)." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p.185). „Also vermag auch das Denken als anfängliches des anderen Anfangs in die ferne Nähe des letzten Gottes zu kommen." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 262). To try to put this in better English, a re-reading would be: therefore thinking as inceptual is the other beginning and comes into the remote nearness of the last God. Scholarship note: the expression"letzten Gottes" (last God) comes from Schelling from at least one place in the lectures on the Philosophy of Art. Schelling said, "He is there merely to draw the boundary – the last god." (et p. 64). Also in this context is a general reference to the biblical book of Exodus, chapter 33. The other beginning is coming near to the last God. Heidegger gives us another clue, when he says, "remote nearness". So, the last God is near, but remote. I think we may 123 be able to say the same thing about the new, other beginning. The new, other beginning is near, but also remote. It means: it can be near. Heidegger's saying about the last God or last gods is more complex than a few aphorisms can touch. We fall short here. 42 "The neo-Kantianism which is philosophies of "life" and of "existence" also affirms, because both – e.g., Dilthey as well as Jaspers – continue to have no inkling of what has actually occurred in Western metaphysics and what must be prepared for as necessity for the other beginning." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 236). „Der Neukantianismus, den auch die „Lebens"und „Existenz" philosophie bejaht, weil beide, z. B. Dilthey, ebenso Jaspers, ohne jede Ahnung bleiben von dem, was in der abendländischen Metaphysik eigentlich geschehen ist und was sichvorbereiten muss als Notwendigkeit des anderen Anfangs." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (19361938) (GA 65, p. 337-338). Heidegger is being critical of neo-Kantians and Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911), Karl Jaspers (1883-1969), plus the philosophies of life and existence. This comes close to being critical of Nietzsche as well. So, since these philosophies have no metahistories of philosophy or metahistories of Da-Sein and Being, then these will not have a deep understanding of the true historical nature of metaphysics. But all of this can be prepared by the necessity (Notwendigkeit) of the other beginning. Has any other philosopher seen what Heidegger has seen and is guiding us? Heidegger himself would point to Hölderlin and his relationship to language in general as perhaps giving Heidegger some clues. However, it is hard to see what part of Heidegger's project in the other beginning involves Hölderlin at all. Heidegger's project just simply put is Heidegger's project. Looking under every rock to see if some thinker has influence upon Heidegger is becoming a boring game for Heideggerians. Heidegger is singularly unique in his thinking and his project. 43 "Philosophy in the other beginning is essentially historical (geschichtlich), and in this respect a more originary (or primordial) kind of remembering (Erinnerung) the history (Geschichte) of the first beginning must now ensue." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 251). „Philosophie im anderen Anfang ist im Wesen geschichtlich, und in dieser Hinsicht muss sich nun auch eine ursprünglichere Art der Erinnerung an die Geschichte des ersten Anfangs ergeben." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 359). This is an important point that Heidegger is making. Re-reading this passage shows that philosophy in the new, other beginning is historical and this kind of thinking must be used to think through the first Greek beginning. Heidegger says this philosophy is essentially historical. I think here we find some general connections to Nietzsche. In this 124 way, perhaps by comparing and contrasting Heidegger with Nietzsche they will both become clearer. Even Hegel and certainly Marx were historical thinkers, but in a different mode than Heidegger or Nietzsche. What is the nature of that difference? 44 "The last god is not the end, but rather the other beginning of immeasurable possibilities for our history. For its sake history up to now should not terminate but rather must be brought to its end. We must bring about the transfiguration of its essential and basic positions in crossing and in preparedness." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 289). „Der letzte Gott ist nicht das Ende, sondern der andere Anfang unermesslicher Möglichkeiten unserer Geschichte. Um seinetwillen darf die bisherige Geschichte nicht verenden, sondern muss zu ihrem Ende gebracht werden. Wir müssen die Verklärung ihrer wesentlichen Grundstellungen in der Übergang und die Bereitschaft hineinschaffen." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) (GA 65, p. 411). This historical domain (Bereich) needs to be brought to an end and a new beginning and a new domain of history needs to begin. Our history has immeasurable (endless) possibilities, if we can bring about the transfiguration in the crossing or transition toward the new, other beginning. The last God or last Gods is not the end of this historical domain, but rather, may be a part of the nearness of the remote last God or last Gods as the new, other beginning. Heidegger's problem here is that we are building a narrow bridge, but from our side of the bridge we can only see the bridge and perhaps a little outline in the distant mist of what is on the other side of this narrow bridge. So, not everything is known about what is on the other side of bridge. Heidegger can only give us some general outlines. Remember this is not representational thinking. There is not an object on the other side where we can have an idea that matches that object – no, this philosophizing is at its high point. We are by definition on thin ice. There are lots of pathways and byways that are wrong, there are many routes to the top of the mountain; but sometimes there is only one route and there is no way of knowing that ahead of time before you climb the mountain. Nevertheless, we still have the distress (die Not) and must start the climb up the mountain. 45 "Only the crossing into the other beginning, the first overcoming (Überwindung) of metaphysics – by necessarily upholding the name in the crossing – raises this difference to knowing awareness and thus for the first time puts it in question, and not into just any question, but rather into questioning what is most question-worthy." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 299) „Erst der Übergang in den anderen Anfang, die erste Überwindung der Metaphysik, unter übergänglichnotwendiger Beibehaltung ihres Namens, hebt diesen Unterschied ins Wissen und stellt ihn damit zum ersten Mal in die Frage; nicht in eine beliebige, sondern 125 in die Frage nach dem Fragwürdigsten." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (19361938) (GA 65, p. 423-424). Here Heidegger links the new, other beginning with the first overcoming of metaphysics and then he adds that this now points toward the most worthy of questioning, namely, the meaning or sense of Being and the truth of Being (Seyn). The truth of Being is Ereignis as properly thought. We can also say that the meaning of Being is time as temporality. All these questions circle the foundational question of how Being is related to Da-Sein. Heidegger is helping us build the narrow bridge, but the details are still in the mist and we still have miles to go. The question Heidegger would ask us is simple: are you underway? Are you on the pathways and byways toward the truth of Being (Seyn)? Are you attempting a path and the force of questioning? Heidegger says, "For the few who from time to time again ask the question..." (GA 65, p. 11, et. p. 9). Final Reflections As Nietzsche said, "with different eyes shall I then seek my lost ones; with a different love shall I then love you." (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, "On the Gift-Giving Virtue"). We should not fear the love of philosophy and truth. This journey and the seeking are certainly putting us on a path. Heidegger says, "Seeking itself is the goal." (Das Suchen selbst ist das Ziel). (GA 65, p. 18, et. p.13). Or, in another work Heidegger says,"For our goal is the very seeking itself" (GA 45, et. p. 6, g. 5). We can take Heidegger at his word and try to think through what that means for philosophizing. We are not revealing "eternal truths" (GA 45, et. p. 21) nor giving a metaphysical description of our world nor creating a grand "system" nor creating a "worldview" (Weltanschauung) nor creating a value system. But rather, we are seeking and asking questions, in other words we are philosophizing. We stand together on the journey. Heidegger said, "The grandeur of man is measured according to what he seeks and according to the urgency by which he remains a seeker (Suchende)." (Grundfragen der Philosophie. Ausgewählte 'Probleme' der 'Logik', GA 45 g. p. 5, et. p.7). What do we seek? Is there any urgency and do we respond to the distress of the loss of Being? Or as Heidegger calls it the "lack of distress is what is utmost in this distress, which becomes recognizable primarily as the abandonment of beings by Being" (GA 65, et. p. 303). 126 Aphorisms: recent and new developments 1 Both Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers wanted philosophy to move beyond the dead historical writings of academic school/university philosophy departments. They both wanted a "living philosophy" instead of these ultra-dry historical "problems". Heidegger in the early 1930s tried the political turn – unsuccessfully. Jaspers left Germany for a better life. Although they had an impact on 20th century philosophy, both had their plans stopped, since philosophy does not have a "pay off". 2 At what point is a new beginning just another re-bake of the same old thing? Who are the ones that come but once? Philosophical schools are only for the weak. How much can we break with what has been our tradition for thousands of years? Is this all dead and gone? Or must we gather all of our strength for our bow and shoot a new arrow into the future? 3 Did Nietzsche ever have a sense of wonder like the Greeks (Aristotle's beginning)? Nietzsche's wanderings meant he never landed, he never came to rest; but his roots, his origins, and his beginnings were religion and morality. Heidegger may have started with religion but he never took up ethics. Heidegger denied wonder as the starting point for a new beginning. Where should our age beginning for a new beginning in philosophy? I do not think this is a personal decision; rather, this is the issue of distress. 4 Heidegger's reading of the Plato's Sophist was the beginning of the publication of Being and Time (1927); but did every thing really begin with lecture courses and the questions from the winter semester of 1919-1920? The roots may have been with Da-sein, but the whole tree and the woods are with a single, sole, unique, and one-only question (the foundations for all questions) for Heidegger. Answer/question/questionable: Being? What about Franz Clemens Brentano's (1838-1917) dissertation, On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle (1862) which was given to Heidegger by Conrad Gröber in September of 1907. Heidegger certainly would not have forgotten about this jewel. Historical note: Husserl started with Brentano's of Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. (1874) 5 In what way do Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, and now Heidegger all function as a critical bottleneck which restricts what is and what is not philosophy what can be philosophy in 127 the future and what cannot be philosophy evermore? Hegel is a different case – in a way that leads to Karl Marx (1818-1883) and a major change in the world. Marx was more concerned with changing the world than merely an interpretation and a conceptualizing of the world. Was Marx's point more toward defining a worldview, which, of course, was socialism and communism? Can we call those worldviews? Moreover, do they need and use facts for their own rational positions? Even the name Marx used "scientific socialism"; this speaks volumes to us today. 6 Which philosophers presuppose the whole notion of man as rational animal, as man being a mix of animal and reason? Heidegger wrote, "...all philosophy from first to last merely unfolds its presupposition." (Heidegger's Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. (GA 32, et. 36). Why do we assume and presuppose that man has reason? Where did philosophers find this faculty? Answer: in the bushes (Nietzsche's remark). Reason is a sub-species of thinking. Even just a simple statement like: man is the thinking animal – already has all of the presuppositions built into it. Can we say that Nietzsche still presupposes man as animal rational? Is this yet another case of Heidegger contra Nietzsche? 7 If we use Plato's allegory, should philosophical systems start with shadows in the cave or with world in the sunlight? Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit starts with the shadows and shows 'us' the direction up to the sunlight. We can then consider Hegel's Science of Logic in this allegory as our world in the sunlight. Where can philosophical or metaphysical systems (systema) start? Can we take a stand or position where we see the whole overview of the cave? Or, are we trapped in the images and are we moving in shadows? Hegel wants to move us toward the sunlight – why is it so hard for us to advance? There are ties back to the cave and that always draws philosophers like Hegel to the metaphysical and onto-theological within the essence of metaphysics. 8 Question: who is our Heidegger? Teacher? Preacher? Advocate? Speaker? Guru? Pundit? Scholar? Philosopher? Thinker? Guide? Climbing guide? Spokesman? Boss? Truth policeman? Priest? Moral authority? Sirdar? Questioner? Interrogator? How is our understanding of Heidegger based on these views? Which one would Heidegger pick? Where would you place others – like Anaximander, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer, Lotze, Nietzsche, Dilthey, Husserl, Jaspers, or Wittgenstein? Kant, Nietzsche, and Heidegger did not want disciples. Why is that? Our direction is thinking and not forming schools of philosophy. Why would you want another –ism? Viewlessness may lead you to thinking – at least we can hope. 9 128 Can any of us say we are feeling sick until the overman appears? Newspaper headlines – Heidegger finds Nietzsche's overman in the Black Forest. Reinhold Messner does a solo up the mountain. Futurologists call in Utopians – stock market is affected. You see how confusing this can become? None of this fits very well together. This shows how the practical nature of philosophy does not fit very well with the practical aspect of our current events. Kant is a methodologist. 10 The method question. The importance of method brings us to Rene Descartes' (1596-1650) work Rules for the Direction of the Mind (Regulae ad directionem ingenii), which was published fifty years after his death in 1701. Descartes said in Regula IV, "Method is necessary for discovering the truth of nature." For example, Kant says he was working out the method, that is, the proper method for metaphysics. Right in the beginning of the Critique of Pure Reason (first edition 1718, second edition 1787), he writes about what he is up to "It is a treatise on the method, not a system of the science itself; but it catalogs the entire outline of the science of metaphysics, both in respect of its boundaries and in respect of its entire internal structure." (CPR, Bxxii). Yes, what is our method? Do you think the method will help you? 11 Heidegger in a letter to Medard Boss (August 17, 1965 – Heidegger's age would be in the mid-70s; he was planning a seminar) their he wrote, "This time I need more leeway to prepare for it because the correct introduction to the methodological problem creates considerably more difficulties than everything else to date." (Zollikon Seminar, et. p. 272). He then follows up that remark with a point in a later letter (September 12, 1965), when he writes, "I am still not quite clear about how to proceed with the reflection about method." (et. p. 272). Does philosophy have its own method? Why did Heidegger get stuck on the reflections about method when he was in his 70s? One of the key points of Heidegger's early breakthrough publication, Being and Time (Sein und Zeit) in 1927, was his building on the radical methodology of phenomenology ("to the things themselves"), which Heidegger re-did with his own approach of hermeneutical phenomenology for fundamental ontology. So, the point of re-doing philosophy with a methodology of hermeneutical phenomenology was a major change at that time. Can we say that Heidegger was a methodologist at that time? Answer: yes. Therefore, what happened later to his methodological approach? Heidegger says in the Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938), "For when it comes to Seyn (Being) and its truth, one must begin again and again." (GA 65 section 5). This was always a criticism of Schelling that he did not have a finished and complete system; that Schelling often started over again. For Heidegger this was his way of doing philosophy. Philosophy is not a dead system without questions. 12 129 Philosophers come after large social revolutions (Hegel's motto of the Owl of Minerva). Philosophers come before their time (Nietzsche, Heidegger). Philosophers have nothing to do with their time or epoch (analytical philosophers). Where does Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) stand? Was Wittgenstein a product of his Vienna just like Heidegger was a product of southern Germany? Should we speak of philosophers as physicians? Who are the physicians of our culture or our planetary age? 13 If water is the analogy for the Dao (Tao), then what is the analogy for Heidegger's Ereignis? The rock is the quarry. How far will Heidegger let the tree bend? What is the real bottom line for Heidegger – time is Being (Seyn). (Note: no question mark here). 14 Can we reverse time as a series of moments to a spatialized temporality of lived experience? This has become a sound byte on T.V. since no one can pay attention any longer. Music is the counterconcept to time as a series of moments. What is the time of dreams? How do we wake up just before the alarm goes off in the morning? Trust reality or be chained to our appearances – you chose. 15 What lead Karl Marx beyond being just a simple philosophy professor? Heidegger tried some political involvement in just university politics; his teacher Joseph Sauer (18721949) (Päpstlichen Hausprälaten, Papal House Prelate) did the same with wildly different results. Everyone knows about Heidegger's involvement and how he ended up digging ditches at the end of WW II. But Karl Marx had a different destiny and influence on the world. Has Heidegger's great influence moved much beyond being a philosophy professor? Answer: ok, a little, but that was not his destiny nor his goal in life. 16 "The alpha and omega of all philosophy is freedom." Contained in a letter from Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Von Schelling (1775-1854) to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), February 4, 1795. Ferrer, on the other hand, thinks that the alpha and omega of philosophy is not freedom, but rather the essential nature of philosophy in itself. What is philosophy? The revolution inside philosophy is a question about the very nature of philosophy as such. This is always the radical revolution within the sway of philosophy in general. The paradigm switches are not in how we understand or think about freedom; but, rather, in the nature of what are we doing when we are doing "philosophy", when we are "philosophizing" – this is what have changed for us. Perhaps this is what philosophy turns around and what it does "to" us. 17 130 How much philosophy is really about the utopian question? The better the "other" world the better world here on earth, the better person, the moral person, the good person, the better government, the better university; all of this hovers around the issue of how to bring a utopia to us on earth. Heaven on earth. If only we had the "answer," then we would be able to bring earth up to the ideal. Really? I do not think so – what kind of a realist are you? Plato's Republic is just the beginning. 18 Heidegger, said in regard to Aristotle, "With Aristotle the greatest philosophical knowledge of antiquity is expressed, a knowledge which even today remains unappreciated and misunderstood in philosophy" (GA 33, Aristotle's Metaphysics U 1–3: On the Essence and Actuality of Force, et. p.188). Aristotle writes in the Metaphysics: "it is because of wondering that men began to philosophize and do so now. First they wondered at the difficulties close at hand; then, advancing little by little, they discussed difficulties also about greater matters; for example, about the changing attributes of the Moon and the Sun, and about the generation of the universe. Now a man who is perplexed and wonders considers himself ignorant . . . so if indeed [he] philosophized in order to avoid ignorance, it is evident that [he] pursued science in order to understand and not in order to use it for something else. This is confirmed by what happened; for it was when almost all of the necessities of life were supplied, both for comfort and activity, that such thinking began to be sought." (Metaphysics I, 2.982b13–25). Does this not ring with what Hegel said in the Science of Logic? However, we see how the whole concept "wonder" becomes the sine qua non of the beginning of philosophy in the first and original beginning of philosophy by the Greeks. Where is the beginning of philosophy for the Indian and Chinese philosophers? Wonder was just where the Aristotle started (perhaps he got that from Plato, maybe the rest of the Greeks too). Philosophy and religion in India maybe said to have started with suffering. 19 Fundamental insight: Nietzsche started with morality. Heidegger started very early with theology and he certainly had a methodological stage. But somewhere in the 1920s Heidegger started with the ontological phase. As far we know, Heidegger never left it. Heidegger equals ontology, or Heidegger = ontology; but it is not Heidegger equals metaphysics or ontology as an ontotheological project. 20 "Nihilism as the divine way of thinking". (Will to Power, #15, Spring-Fall 1887). This means that nihilism is the powerfulness to create everything anew (Will to Power, #14, Spring-Fall 1887). Nietzsche lamented these thoughts with the words: two thousand years and not a single new God. But he thought that we still have enough chaos within us to give birth to a "dancing star." Therefore, the question is simply: do we still have the 131 power for our own creative forces? Do we still have the power to create ex nihilo? Answer: no, we do not have the power to overcome. The re-valuation of all values needs the clean power to create the values; in fact, the trans-valuation of all values needs the power to revive up new values and to posit them as ideas, ideals, and goals toward which we move our life force (assuming we have any life force left). All of the old goals: lifein-the-hereafter, the progress of civilization, the space race, Johnson's Great Society – nothing else comes to mind (what does that tell you?). 21 Nietzsche said in 1885 (Will to Power, #409), "What dawns on philosophers last of all: they must no longer accept concepts as gifts, nor merely purify and polish them, but first make and create them, present them and make them convincing." Heidegger talks about Reinigung, section 110, subsection 26."(What unfolds as "destruction" in Sein und Zeit does not mean dismantling as demolishing but as purifying..." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939), GA 65, German pp. 220-221) Heidegger continues, "in the direction of freeing basic metaphysical positions. But considering the enactment of echo and playing-forth, all of this prelude." Somehow I take this as a basic stance by Heidegger as to what he is up to with his thinking. The living (not dead) in Heidegger. 22 Why are philosophers concerned with how to act? Not just with themselves, but that they should want "laws" for how others should act. How many "rules" do we need? What happened to the one "rule"? The golden rule – can they think of how to apply that rule? Why do they want to tell others what are the "rules?" Is it the fear of overcoming the chaos with rules? Is this the answer or the question mark? Instead of moral people we have rule following people, who are just following the "rules" without humanity. Even the military has seen through this logic and trained soldiers how to fight and kill in a moral and humane way. No, I was just following the rules (orders). 23 Do thoughts come to us as a philosophical article or "work"? I think not. (Will to Power, #424, 1885). Nietzsche agrees, he says "no". The aphoristic method is somehow our "raw" thoughts that are encapsulated in words and language. Philosophical research and investigations are where the analysis phase takes over and "produces" something for all or at least, for someone to read. This is often the justification after the "fact" of the written word – but where is thought? I think? Then why does this come out in English? Or, sometimes it comes out in German or Hindi. I can say it in Chinese, but somehow it is not my thinking process. Why is that? 24 Is Heidegger part of a reaction? Nietzsche said in Will to Power (#427 Nov 1887March 1888), that "The philosopher, on the other hand, is the reaction: he desires the old virtue." 132 In what way does Heidegger desire the old virtues of the Greek world? Heidegger is using the new modern phenomenological method, but is he pointing backward to a nonmodern, non-technological world? Or, does he point toward the future? Heidegger is both; he provokes the contradiction and all of the countermovements, plus he has certainly provoked the reaction. But is the reaction to Heidegger really connected to what is Heidegger's main thrust, his sole unique thought, his single thought? Or, is it less connected? All great thinkers demand a reaction of us. Heidegger makes us into a reaction, a movement in thought, a countermovement and counter-motion as part of contrathinking. In other words, he pushes us and we want to push back. At bottom we have some level of "discontent" with Heidegger's project – he does not want mindless followers who chase his every word. Philology is the other side of philosophy. Why do the Germans have philology departments and why are there very few in the USA? 25 Can we view Heidegger as a "destroyer" like Nietzsche? Did he stop us in our tracks and make us backup and re-think everything? Yes and no. Heidegger is and was a destroyer of our classical "metaphysics"; but his great "yes-saying" seems to be more. Both of them understood the problems connected with the use of given "concepts". Even Hegel understood the problem of making 'German' speak real, honest-to-goodness "philosophy". Martin Heidegger said: "Philosophy cannot appear in public in any other way, since all essential titles have become impossible, because all fundamental words have been used up and the genuine relation to the word has been destroyed." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939, first page). This is part of the reason why Heidegger had a tough time with Nietzsche, when he realized a part of the nature of Nietzsche's critique of Philosophers and their like. Heidegger seems to be caught in the Nietzschean dilemma – one horn or the other. Hegel notes, "The method itself by means of this moment expands itself into a system." (Science of Logic, et. p. 838). The system has the inner movement of the method to push toward the telos. How do speak of philosophy without the use of grammar that is tied to metaphysics. 26 Nietzsche's answer to Plato is Thucydides. Was that because of his philosophy or just simply his worldview? My answer to Plato is Heidegger. Heidegger's answer to Plato is the high point of metaphysics (the great Hegel) and the complete countermovement to Plato is Nietzsche. Twist Plato until he becomes Nietzsche – this is Heideggerian squeeze play. Wring and mangle Plato until he produces a Hegel and a Nietzsche. How does Plato become both the central force for both Hegel and Nietzsche? How much of Aristotle is Hegel? Perhaps more Aristotle than Plato, but still the overall background is still Plato. Even Aristotle spent years with Plato. Where is Kant in this picture? The transcendental conditions transform the issue of eternal ideas. Hegel has infused Aristotle and Plato with an ontotheological "system". Kant has questions, but Hegel's metaphysical system is a complete picture once you get out of the cave into the sunlight. 133 27 Nietzsche uses the German expression Versuch an experiment, and an attempt. In the Gay Science: la gaya scienza, 1886, he says, "We ourselves wish to be our experiments..." (#319). Individuals must develop and attempt their own singular unique historical thinking. Fly and be your own eagle, do not be sheep. Nietzsche stated clearly with the expression, "I want no "believers" (Ecce Homo, "Why I am a Destiny", section #1). How many philosophers in the history of philosophy would have said they want no "believers" in their metaphysical systems? Why write out philosophy at all? On the other side, all philosophy is a journey – therefore, why is there a need or desire to write it down for others to digest? Alternatively, get sick. Write what down is really our/the question. 28 If we knew the truth, then why do we have to search for it? In addition, if we do not know the truth, then how will we find it out in the world? If I told you the nature of truth, then would you believe me? Alternatively, in fact could I even write it on this page? Truth is written on a page and read by someone, who is somewhere, and at some time in the future. Although this is really just a question to make you think along with me, have you followed me yet? Who will read this and see anything close to the Truth on this written page? What is the ultimate value of your truth or is it just my truth? Can you lose the truth like your car keys? 29 „Aus einem einfachen Ruck des wesentlichen Denkens muss das Geschehen der Wahrheit des Seyns versetzt werden vom ersten Anfang in den anderen, damit im Zuspiel das ganz andere Lied des Seyns erklinge". Martin Heidegger. (GA 65 p. et. 7). "Following a simple shift of essential thinking, the happening of the truth of Seyns must be transposed from the first beginning into the other, so that the wholly other song of Seyns sounds in the playing-forth." (GA 65 p. et. 7). How to read the Contributions to Philosophy? Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis)? This is the question, but the answer is simple – carefully. What makes this a difficult text for the reader? Heidegger is not lecturing on a philosophical text or a historical philosopher. This is not a typical philosophical text working through philosophical problems, arguments, investigations, schools, or –isms. One of the most difficult problems with reading this text is that there is no object. The matter for thought is no thing or no object. The text is not some reflections on different topics. All this makes the text a difficult text for readers. Heidegger does not structure the text for the reader even though these are not aphorisms or just simple notes to himself. This text is a very original philosophical project similar to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Plato's Sophist, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, Schelling's Of Human Freedom, or Nietzsche's Thus 134 Spoke Zarathustra. On the other hand, for that matter, it similar to Heidegger's own Being and Time. All of these philosophical texts (and some of them are 'works') are exceedingly difficult to read and to understand their philosophical purpose. Many original philosophical texts have their own innovative and creative use of language and the Contributions to Philosophy (1936-1939) is certainly a case in point. Heidegger used an original but structured language in Being and Time (1927) and yet, ten years later Heidegger re-invented his language in a way that does not resemble Being and Time. Even a famous Heideggerian term like Da-sein, which used extensively in both texts, is re-conceptualized and re-polished in the Contribution to Philosophy. It is almost a prerhetorical use of the same terms that Heidegger wants us to hear in a different way. Nietzsche often over-determines his concepts (too enriched), but Heidegger has strength in his deep understanding of language and the inner nature of philosophical thinking. Heidegger did not publish this text during his lifetime and it was only published fifty years after it was written. Supposedly, Martin Heidegger directed his son Dr. Hermann Heidegger to publish this text after the so-called historical lectures had already been published in the Gesamtausgabe (GA) (Ausgabe letzter Hand. »Wege – nicht Werke«). Heidegger makes many references in the Contributions to Philosophy to many other writings that were written during those same years (1936-1939) that have not been published yet. Hence, it makes those references in the Contributions to Philosophy difficult for the reader, since the context for those references is missing. For instance, in the important section number 265 with title: "En-thinking of Being (Seyn)*". The footnote reference '*" at the bottom of the page says, "Cf. Überlegungen VII, 78ff." This is a reference to volume 95 of Gesamtausgabe to be published at the very end of the Gesamtausgabe project. In the middle of section 267 is a more general reference to the Überlegungen IV (GA 94). There are many references to these volumes and many other volumes that have yet to be published, but these were for Heidegger in some "final" state such that he could make references to exact pages. The dates for these volumes, which are not yet published, start from 1930 and go up to 1939. There is some indirect evidence that the Überlegungen (English translation of this word might be "considerations") were at least started in the late 1930s, but until these are published we only have part of the story and context related to Contributions to Philosophy. So, the internal text points to a much wider context of texts and writings which extend beyond the Contributions to Philosophy and relate to the whole of Heidegger's path of thinking during this fruitful and productive period. Heidegger was in his later 40s during this time. At first glance, readers may think that these are just Heidegger's personal notes to himself and were never meant for publication. Heidegger remarks in Bestimmung (GA 66, p. 427) that the Contributions to Philosophy is not up to the level of a philosophical "work". But even though Heidegger calls it an unmastered plan (GA 65 section 1, et. p. 5), still it does have a structure. Martin Heidegger compared the handwritten version with the typed version that his brother Fritz Heidegger had completed in June 1939. In addition, Heidegger makes references to how central the Contributions to Philosophy is in other publications written just after it. 135 Therefore, even though Heidegger viewed this as major text and important project – nevertheless, we need to ask the question why Heidegger did not publish it during his lifetime. In theory, Heidegger may have thought it was only after the publication of many of his other writings that we would be "prepared" for a deeper understanding of what he was attempting in Contributions to Philosophy. It remains to be seen if "we" Heideggerians are in fact ready to read the Contributions to Philosophy. Just as when Nietzsche complained about being "misunderstood, misjudged, misidentified, slandered, misheard, and not heard" (The Gay Science, Book Five, section 371), can we assume that Heidegger would say the same thing? Heidegger knew that most likely he would be at least "misunderstood." The whole structure that he tried to put into Being and Time was one attempt to be "clear". But very little was attempted by Heidegger in Contributions to Philosophy to make it "clear" for the reader. I think it is an important point that Heidegger has called the first part of the text "Preview" (Sections 1-49 or some 70 pages in the English translation). Where is Fichte when we need him? Hegel never like 'prefaces' or 'introductions' since they were really never part of the actual system or science of philosophy, but Heidegger wants to give us a 'preview' before we get going into the six unequal jointures or facets. Heidegger says, "Each of the six joinings of the jointure stands for itself, but only in order to make the essential onefold more pressing. In each of the six joinings the attempt is made always to say the same of the same, but in each case from within another essential domain of that which enowning names." (GA 65 et., p. 57). In this passage Heidegger points out the 'essential domain' is what differs in the attempt. But the structure itself is still difficult in the reading and interpretation of this text. The question of why it appears to have 'repetitions' of topics and named sections is answered by Heidegger (GA 65, cf. section 39). But Heidegger then makes an interesting remark, a "hidden inter-resonating" about the structure of the whole text. However, many of us have yet to see how this is worked out in the details of the text. On the other side, Hegel, in the Science of Logic, makes a great number of points about the whole progression within the Science of Logic and also in his letters. For Hegel, this is more than just a simple idea of dialectical. Heidegger is contra Hegel on speculative philosophy. A letter from Hegel states, "Philosophical content has in its method and soul three forms: it is, 1, abstract, 2, dialectical, and 3, speculative." Hegel to Niethammer Nuremberg, October 23, 1812. (Werke III, 301-16). It is in the Science of Logic that Hegel sees the progression and the unity inside the movement of the notion (Begriff). Heidegger also sees the question of the inner unity of the text, but, unlike Hegel, he is not doing a "system". The question of the inner unity and structure of the Contributions to Philosophy goes to one of the most difficult questions for Heidegger, namely, how to do philosophy but not to do systematic metaphysics. Without doing aphorisms, Heidegger is drawn back into the issue of doing philosophy but not doing metaphysics. What is Heidegger's methodology in the various stages of his philosophical development? 30 136 We now need to try to gain some insight into how to come to grips with Heidegger through a Heideggerian methodology (hermeneutics, phenomenology – you name it). How would Heidegger read Heidegger? How would Heidegger expect "us" as thoughtful Heideggerians to read Heidegger and write about him? Heidegger (more than Kant or Hegel) has made us aware of the difficulties with the whole issue of the "how" of reading philosophical texts. Nietzsche often talked to his "readers" about how to read him. Do we know anywhere that Heidegger has given us much direction on how to read his "real" philosophical texts (like GA 65)? We know that he wanted most of the lectures on historical philosophical texts to be published before the Beiträge was published – I think this gives us some indication of how we might read his texts. But I think we still have an open problem for Heideggerians on how to read Heidegger as Heidegger would want us to read him. It is interesting that some of his students' Protokolls have been published with the Gesamtausgabe. How can we read Heidegger as a Heideggerian without being a "believer" or a "disciple"? Where does Heidegger talk to his readers as Nietzsche does in Ecce Homo? 31 "For the rare who bring along the utmost courage for solitude, in order to think the nobility of Seyn and to speak of its uniqueness." Martin Heidegger. (Footnote: GA 65 et. p. 9). Who are the rare? Reading some of these thoughts by Heidegger, I get a strong feeling that Nietzsche is in the background. "I do not wish to persuade anyone to philosophy: it is inevitable, it is perhaps also desirable, that the philosopher should be a rare plant.' (Will to Power, #420 1884). My first sense in reading this whole text is: Nietzsche is in the background. Nietzsche is certainly not in the foreground (Heidegger is in the foreground), but I think Nietzsche is much closer than Kant or Hegel. 32 "By contrast, in philosophical knowing a transformation of the man who understands takes place with the very first step – not in a moral, "existentiell" sense but rather with Da-sein as measure." (GA 65, et. p. 10) The more I read, the more I realize that Heidegger is radically transforming what it means to do philosophy. What is the nature of Philosophy and philosophical knowing according to the Beiträge? How does one do philosophy according to the Beiträge? One of the reasons this is a difficult text is because Heidegger is not just "telling" us some philosophical result, but he is "showing" what it means to do philosophy. Heidegger is not telling us about a house with four walls and that it looks like it has green siding on the outside of the house. Rather, the comparison is that Heidegger has moved us inside the house and there are no walls there, just open space. Since there are no walls inside the house, it is like no other house you have ever entered, that is, a different way of philosophizing. Thus, philosophers have a problem reading this text because it is not like any other philosophical text that they have read. Another part of this problem is that Heidegger is actually doing something different, not just giving us a picture or some proofs. Notice the word "transformation". 137 33 "If gods are the undecided, because at the beginning the opening for godding is still denied, what does it mean to say: at the disposal of the gods? That word means to stand ready for being used in opening the open." (GA 65, et. p. 13-14). I think that as Heidegger made some points about the relationship between philosophy and theology, so this is not traditional theology. Heidegger is not sure if the God or God or gods have come and gone for good or are just hiding – which certainly does not sound like ontology and theology. BUT (and I underscore the "but") Heidegger is making the point about being open to the divine (the God or God or gods). Heidegger did raise the questions and clearly thought about the divine, so on the one hand, we can not say that Heidegger was closed to the possibility, but it is not clear that he had an actual theology. In other words, I think this is an open question that Heidegger wanted to remain an open question. The Buddha was silent on some questions and Heidegger has been silent on some questions (does Da-sein in Being and Time have a soul?); but, in this case, Heidegger wants to open the question and leave it open (at least that is my reading). Why do we want to find closure on this question? If there is a Divine/divine force, then we need to back out and let the divine force have its way with us. 34 "In this way the inceptual mindfulness of thinking becomes necessarily genuine thinking, i.e., a thinking that sets goals. What gets set is not just any goal, and not the goal in general, but the one and only and thus singular goal of our history. This goal is the seeking itself, the seeking of Seyn. It takes place and is itself the deepest find when man becomes the preserver of the truth of Seyn, becomes guardian and caretaker of that stillness, and is resolute in that." (GA 65, et. p. 13). I find this passage insightful for me as a way to understand Heidegger. The background for me is teleology, maybe even active nihilism. Heidegger takes all of the metaphysics out of the question and directs in toward his transformation of philosophy – all in a very neat way. I really enjoyed this brief text and the way Heidegger has brought it together. Could we do teleology without metaphysics? Heidegger is at least trying. What are our future goals? Where are we heading and is there a purpose to the way we are heading (what are the 'reasons', the directions)? 35 Following his critique of Feuerbach, Marx wrote, "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it." (Theses On Feuerbach, written spring of 1845). One of Feuerbach's main works was entitled: Principles of Philosophy of the Future (1843), Grundsätze der Philosophie der Zukunft. Nietzsche was reading this book in 1882 (see Thomas H. Brobjer, "Nietzsche's Reading and Private Library, 1885-1889"). I think Nietzsche got some of his inspiration from Feuerbach's pointing toward the future. One of Nietzsche's important works is entitled, "Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future (1886). Jenseits von Gut und 138 Böse: Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft. Therefore, in a sense, there is more than just the question of changing the world with philosophy, but the direction of philosophical thinking as pointing toward the future. Could Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and the later Schelling write something with this kind of title that is directed toward the future? 36 Kant begins the Critique of Pure Reason with a striking image: the "battlefield of these endless controversies is called metaphysics" (CPR, Avii). He then tells us a little story of how in the beginning metaphysics started with the "administration of the dogmatists, her rule was despotic" (CPR, Aix). These battles continued and almost came to an end with the famous John Locke (1632-1704), but "fell back into the same old worm-eaten dogmatism" (CPR, Ax). Thus, the text of the Critique of Pure Reason begins with the history of philosophy and then the final section is called the history of pure reason (Die Geschichte der reinen Vernunft). Within this beginning and ending is this treatise on the method of the "metaphysics of metaphysics", namely, the Critique of Pure Reason (Letter To Marcus Herz, May 11, 1781, Correspondence, et. p. 181). So, Kant is situating himself within his own history of pure reason, that is, within his own Metahistory of philosophy. 37 What Real Progress has Metaphysics Made in Germany Since the Time of Leibniz and Wolff? Kant wrote this work in 1793. The German title is: Welches sind die wirklichen Fortschritte, die Metaphysik seit Leibnizens und Wolffs Zeiten in Deutschland gemacht hat? Thus, philosophy has gone through three stages in regard to metaphysics. The first was the stage of dogmatism, the second skepticism, and third, the criticism of pure reason. (CPR, et p. 61). This sounds again like Leibniz and Wolff (Wolff's follower, Alexander Baumgarten (1714-1762), Kant used his Metaphysics (1757). When Kant thinks of skepticism, I think, in this context, it must be in reference to Hume. Although already in December of 1792, in a letter to Jacob Sigismund Beck, Kant mentions the assumed name of Aenesidemus (real name is: Gottlob Ernst Schulze, 1761-1833) where "an even wider skepticism has been advanced" (Correspondence, et. p. 445). The complete title of the book was Aenesidemus oder über die Fundamente der von Herrn Professor Reinhold in Jena gelieferten Elementar-Philosophie, 1792. In Germany at this time, Schulze's name became synonymous with skepticism. Kant might also be thinking of the early Greek skeptics. For example, Kant mentions in a different context, "Pyrrho among others was a great Skeptic" (Lectures on Metaphysics, et. p. 305). Moreover, on the same page, he says, "Sextus Empiricus, who brought all doubts together" (Lectures on Metaphysics, et. p. 305). Thus, Kant was well acquainted with skepticism from a variety of sources in the complete history of philosophy. 139 38 Kant said that Hume "aroused me from a dogmatic slumber" (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, 1783). However, in the lecture notes called Metaphysik Mrongovius (1782-1783), we have an interesting and perhaps a more candid remark about Hume from almost the same year. Kant said, "Something similar to a critique of pure reason was found with David Hume, but he sank into the wildest and most inconsolable speculation over this, and that happened easily because he did not study reason completely, but rather only this or that concept. An investigation of practices (facti), how we arrive at cognition, where from experience or though pure reason. Locke accomplished much here..." (Lectures on Metaphysics, et. p. 137). An interesting point is that again, we have the praise of the empiricist Locke and rather critical and almost sarcastic remarks about Hume. Kant is saying rather decisively that Hume's philosophy looked at "only this or that concept". This is Kant's position on the overall consequence of Hume's philosophical skepticism in relation to Kant's project of transcendental and critical idealism ("my transcendental, or, better, critical idealism" (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, 1783). Kant's critical idealism points away from Humean skepticism. Kant does have unbounded trust in reason. The pervasiveness of these criticisms of Hume suggests strongly that Kant's rationalism was the foundation of his project. He was one among many. Kant knew more about the history of philosophy thanks to Johann Formey (1711-1797), Kurzgesfassete Historie der Philosophie von Hernn Formey, Berlin, 1763, (Abridged History of Philosophy). 39 Heidegger on Hegel: 1) Heidegger said in 1915, "Philosophy...now faces the huge task of fundamentally confronting the system of a historical worldview which is the most powerful with regard to its fullness, its depth, its conceptuality, and the richness of its experiences, and which as such has resumed and surpassed all proceeding fundamental philosophical problems; that is, it has to confront Hegel" (translation by Karin de Boer, GA 1:410-411). 2) Heidegger said in 1946, "In spite of the superficial talk about the breakdown of Hegelian philosophy, one thing remains true: only this philosophy determined reality in the nineteenth century, although not in the external form of a doctrine followed, but rather as metaphysics, as the dominance of beingness in the sense of certainty. The counter movements to this metaphysics belong to it. Ever since Hegel's death (1831), everything is merely a countermovement, not only in Germany, but also in Europe. (GA 32, "Overcoming Metaphysics", et. 89). 140 3) Heidegger said in 1958, "Accordingly, philosophy as the self-development of spirit into absolute knowledge and the history of philosophy are identical. No philosophy prior to Hegel's had acquired such a fundamental grounding of philosophy, enabling and requiring philosophizing itself to simultaneously move within its history and be in this movement philosophy itself. ("Hegel and the Greeks," Conference of the Academy of Sciences at Heidelberg. 1958). Heidegger saw Hegel's philosophy as a huge system and as a task to overcome as part of metaphysics, but Heidegger's philosophical thinking was not close to Hegel. Question: how close is Heidegger to Hegel? – The simple answer is that they are not very close at all. Perhaps Nietzsche, the great anti-system thinker, is the farthest from Hegel. Heidegger is not far behind Nietzsche. We must attempt to be without a system and to do philosophy without doing metaphysics on our journey. 40 Heidegger seems to be closer to Schelling than to Hegel, when he remarks, "...for Schelling is the truly creative and boldest thinker of this whole age of German philosophy. He is that to such an extent that he drives German Idealism from within right past its own fundamental position." (Heidegger's Schelling's treatise on the essence of human freedom, et. p. 4). Heidegger made the following interesting statement about Schelling's Treatise on Human Freedom when he remarked that it is, "The treatise which shatters Hegel's Logic before it was even published." (Schelling's treatise on the essence of human freedom Treatise, et. p. 97). Thus, it was Schelling that Heidegger saw as the boldest thinker of this epoch, not Hegel. For us this means Hegel still needs to be encountered, and thus his metaphysical systems need to be confronted. Heidegger is still part of that countermovement to the movement to Hegel, and if he needs Schelling's help to push the metaphysical foundations, well so be it! Let Schelling speak and be heard! 41 Hegel's thinking is in the camp of reason. There are of course the typical rationalist's positions, such as Descartes (1596-1650), Leibniz (1646-1716), and even Spinoza (16321677). Spinoza's system was in the air during these times and was talked about in intellectual circles. Hegel's friend, Schelling, is often linked to Spinoza. Schelling at one stage often mimicked Spinoza's method of geometry, for example, laying down axioms and trying to prove those propositions. Spinoza's rationalism led to pantheism. This raises the specter of the pantheism controversy ("All-is-one-ists") debated by F.H. Jacobi (1743-1819) and Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786); started by a report about G.E. Lessing (1729-1781). Lessing said he was a Spinozist shortly before his death, according to a report from Jacobi. The pantheism controversy drew Kant (1724-1804) into the dialogue as well. Hegel certainly would have understood his own theological position vis-a-via this debate. Hegel made a number of remarks about the shortcomings of Spinoza in the Science of Logic (e.t. p. 141 536). In the Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel said, "Spinoza's system is absolute pantheism and monotheism elevated into thought." Hegel sees himself within rationalism. However, Hegel's is a different kind of rationalism than Spinoza's. For example, the first part of the Science of Logic deals with substance similar to Spinoza's position and it is the only way of uplifting Spinoza is through Hegel. 42 Heidegger's own specific philosophical position vis-a-vis Hegel was, "If reading the problematic of Being and Time into some other text is ever nonsensical, then this is the case with Hegel. For the thesis that the essence of Being is time is the exact opposite of what Hegel tried to demonstrate in his entire philosophy." (GA 32, et. p. 145). Therefore, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit is not some kind of early Being and Time. Only Kant has a glimmer of the problematic of Being and Time, according to Heidegger in his 1930 lecture. That glimmer was that the meaning of Being (Sinn von Sein) is finite temporality. Infinite has been lost to metaphysics. 43 The term "Phenomenology", it was used by J.H. Lambert (1728-1777) in 1764 the Neues Organon and was used by Kant in a number of places. The expression "Phenomenology" was also used by Fichte (1762-1814) in his Berlin lectures of 1804. In a letter to J.H. Lambert, Kant stated, "A quite special, though purely negative Science, general phenomenology (phaenomologia generalis) seems to me to be presupposed by metaphysics." (1770). Kant discusses the position of phenomenology in his system in a 1772 letter to Marcus Herz: "The first part would have two sections, (1) general phenomenology and (2) metaphysics, but this only with regard to its nature and method." Kant published the Critique of Pure Reason eleven years later in 1781. Kant's work could have been called the Phenomenology of Pure Reason. Both Hegel and Kant viewed their works as something that precedes metaphysics. These are philosophical issues that need to be worked out before actually engaging in creating the metaphysical system. This is not "physics" in the sense of Aristotle. Rather, these works are the presuppositions to metaphysics. Heidegger wrote, "...all philosophy from first to last merely unfolds its presupposition." (GA 32, et. 36). The Critique of Pure Reason is after physics, and yet before metaphysics; it is a prior, namely Kant's expression of the "metaphysics of metaphysics." Hegel at one point wrote in a similar vein of, "thinking of thinking". Kant spoke of phenomenology in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786). The Fourth Chapter is entitled: "Metaphysical Foundations of Phenomenology", but his use of the term is different from Hegel's. At that point, for Kant, phenomenology meant something like a doctrine of appearance or Erscheinugslehre. Walter Kaufmann reported that Novalis (1772-1801) used the term 'phenomenology' at this point in time as well. So, the term, phenomenology was being used in philosophical discourse at the time Hegel used it. Over time even Hegel changed the meaning and place in his philosophical system. Why did not Hegel footnote where he borrowed the term from? 142 44 Nietzsche said something very interesting to a position contra Hegel. "One chooses dialectic only when one has no other means. One knows that one arouses mistrust with it, that it is not very persuasive. Nothing is easier to erase than a dialectical effect: the experience of every meeting at which there are speeches proves this. It can only be self-defense for those who no longer have other weapons." (Twilight of the Idols, 1888). Therefore, philosophers can see (pure, absolute, eternal) Notions as the ideas in the sunlight of Plato's cave, and yet, the Notion is methodology and the process of the dialectics. Spirit finds its pure element of existence in the Notion. The Notion is the entelecheia that is the internal movement of spiritual reality unfolding itself. Hegel, late in the Science of Logic, said, "In point of fact, as the principle of philosophy is the infinite free Notion, and all of its content rests on that alone." (Science of Logic, et. p. 817). In another important passage, he tied the Notion with Philosophy, saying, "Philosophy has the same content and the same end as art and religion; but it is the highest mode of apprehending the absolute Idea, because its mode is the highest mode, the Notion." (Science of Logic, et. p. 824). Thus, the purpose of the Phenomenology of Spirit is to get us to the standpoint of the circle of circles, namely, the pure, absolute, eternal, spiritual, ensouled reflected into itself – Notion. Where would Nietzsche see himself in this Hegelian process metaphysic (an absolute and final metaphysical system in the grand sense of the concept)? Nietzsche said, "In the history of the quest for knowledge the Germans are inscribed with nothing but ambiguous names, they have always brought forth only "unconscious" counterfeiters (-Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Schleiermacher deserve this epithet as well as Kant and Leibniz; they are all mere veil makers [veil makers = Schleiermacher (Ecce Homo, "The Case of Wagner"). [Die Deutschen sind in die Geschichte der Erkenntniss mit lauter zweideutigen Namen eingeschrieben, sie haben immer nur "unbewusste" Falschmünzer hervorgebracht (- Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Schleiermacher gebührt dies Wort so gut wie Kant und Leibniz, es sind Alles blosse Schleiermacher -)]. Nietzsche is making a pun on the last name of Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834). The young Nietzsche, in his early essay "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life," 1873, said this about Hegel's influence: "I believe that there has been no dangerous variation or change in German culture in this century, which has not become more dangerous through the monstrous influence of the philosophy of Hegel, an influence which continues to flow right up to the present." 45 Philosophical anthropology. Heidegger says, "Having become philosophical anthropology, philosophy itself perishes of metaphysics." (Overcoming Metaphysics, 1946, et. p 99). Husserl and Heidegger attacked and counterattacked each other over the issue of whether their philosophies were philosophical anthropology only. Heidegger 143 generally attacked most modern philosophers as being merely philosophical anthropologists. Of course, Heidegger connected this position to the metaphysical tendencies of contemporary philosophy. Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), in his attack on philosophical anthropology, mentioned Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) and Max Scheler (1874-1928), but Heidegger was the one who irked him the most. In his famous essay, Husserl started out saying, "As is well known, over the last decade some of the younger generation of German philosophers has been gravitating with ever increasing speed toward philosophical anthropology." (Lecture "Phenomenology and Anthropology" June 1931, et. p. 485). Part of his attack was the stinging remarks Husserl made about Heidegger that Being and Time was only philosophical anthropology. 46 Heidegger did an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel in September 1966, which was only to be published after his death. When Heidegger died in 1976, the interview was soon published a few weeks later. The interview seems to open up a much more personal tone of the later Heidegger's thinking on a great number of topics. You also get the sense that Heidegger is very humble about his influence and what can be done. However, this is a theology with no connections to metaphysics or the Onto-theology nature of metaphysics. This is a step out. The followed passages give us a sense of Heidegger's thinking on the future of a post-metaphysical theo-logy: "Only a god can save us. The sole possibility that is left for us is to prepare a sort of readiness, through thinking and poetizing, for the appearance of the god or for the absence of the god in the time of foundering; for in the face of the god who is absent, we founder (Der Spiegel's Interview with Martin Heidegger, p.277)." Heidegger's last remark in this interview was, "For us contemporaries the greatness of what is to be thought is too great. Perhaps we might bring ourselves to build a narrow and not far-reaching footpath as a passageway" (Der Spiegel's Interview with Martin Heidegger, p.284). So, we need a 'footpath' or some kind of path onward. Heidegger uses the image of the path a great deal in his writings for good reasons. A Heidegger poem dating from 1971 says, Paths, Paths of thought, going by themselves, vanishing. When they turn again, what do they show us? Paths, going by themselves, formerly open, suddenly closed, later on. Once pointing out the way, never attained, destined to renunciation - slackening the pace from out of the harmony of trustworthy fate. And again the need 144 for a lingering darkness within the waiting light. (Philosophy Today, vol. 21, 1976, p. 287) Heidegger feels himself in the lingering darkness and he is waiting for the light. The lingering darkness is the absence of God and God is the light. And where is the trustworthy fate? 47 Nietzsche said, "Everything in the hero's sphere turns to tragedy; everything in the demigod's sphere turns to satyr-play; and everything in God's sphere turns to... to what? "world" perhaps?" (Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future. section "Part IV: Epigrams and Interludes #150). „Um den Helden herum wird Alles zur Tragödie, um den Halbgott herum Alles zum Satyrspiel; und um Gott herum wird Alles – wir? Vielleicht zur 'Welt'? – " (Jenseits von Gut und Böse: Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunf. Section. Viertes Hauptstück: Sprüche und Zwischenspiele. #150). This is an example where Nietzsche's thinking leaps off of the page and whirls us around – perhaps God to the world! Note: hero's sphere = tragedy; demigod's sphere = satyrplay; and God's sphere ="world". Do we have faith in a grammar that would hold this together and make sense to some one reading this on this page? Nietzsche pushes us closer to the abyss of our own philosophical comprehension. Remember Hölderlin (1770-1843), Hegel, and Heidegger all knew that they had to transform the basic nature of language to do philosophy. The very stuff of thinking is language, so how to transform thinking without the language. Heidegger said in the second sentence of the Beiträge, "Philosophy cannot appear in public in any other way, since all essential titles have become impossible, because all fundamental words have been used up and the genuine relation to the word has been destroyed." (GA 65, et. p. 3). Some Recent Aphorisms March/April 2004 1 145 Nietzsche has become my Rubicon – perhaps I am still not over him, perhaps I have not progress any further. 2 Who can say that that they have used Nietzsche's gold scales and to be able to set his own conscience to rest that these writing projects are totally honest? 3 Spinoza. Hegel. Pantheism. Skepticism. Idealism. Atheism. Naturalism. Realism? 4 Some of you have kept silent too long – pick up the pen (keyboard) and begin your life. Do it now! Are you serous? Where is your justification? 5 Pessimism is just the final end of realism. Russian fatalism as Nietzsche knew was the best kind of fatalism – why be totally superficial? 6 Every time you read some philosophy ask yourself if this has been "depersonalized" enough. Dried out and the life driven out of carcass. 7 Some philosophers dream of making distinctions whereas other philosophers are flooded with ideas. Take inspiration from artist. 8 My attempt to make everything: Riper Clearer Stronger Deeper Beyond good and evil I want the fruit to have finally ripened over the years. The days of being precocious are gone. 9 146 The time for metaphysical systems is gone but the new age is still gathering underneath us. Am I making conjectures or just reading the leaves on the ground? 10 Do you want to refute this as if refutations had any place on these pages? There you have been totally refuted. 11 How can we get the ideas on this page and then lift them up to reader; since, indeed much in you is still worm in the mud? The meaning of the earth is your nature is fixed in mud. Is this just refined materialism? 12 Worthlessnessing – boy is that worth writing. 13 Being, un-Being, truth, un-truth, time, un-time, substance, un-substance, unity, un-unity, identity, un-identity, appearance, un-appearance, worldly, un-worldly, ego, un-ego, selfhood, unself-hood, eternity, un-eternity. Can you see the pattern? Non-metaphysical speaking must also be allowed to speak to us. 14 Who do the philosophers write ads for? Who do the artists do works for? Then there are those few of us who let it rip, since we have no choice. 15 The image of the cold dip making you swift is also so that we are not re-baking ideas for the "reader", since the ideal "reader" is only the writer hidden in the disguise of a term "reader" as such. 16 Scholarship must be a side issue for thinkers. Freedom should be our nourishment. 17 Our service to God can only be by following our nature. How could it be otherwise? The shining glitter of snow must be like our wings of thought. Art should be the methodology for philosophy. Van Gogh. Can you be corrupted by art or is philosophy still too dry for that? 18 147 Who can follow me and say that I am now (I have become) a disciple of no one? A question mark for the ages. Heideggerians blush and refuse to take the next step. 19 When we read Heidegger we go through stages: enthusiasm, despair, hungry, boredom, then enlightenment, and final letting go. What stages of thinking and of life do you go through? Recuperation – that is the one word which that will let you down again and again. 20 Can we say that Hegel belongs to the ancients? His metaphysics is closer than we may know. Aristotle and Plato. 21 Do we really have any tremendous philosophical tasks left to us to ponder? All just crevasse to fill in and see the depths. Tasks lay unknown to us. 22 Perhaps we have asked too many questions and our questionable nature speaks out. Does the question mark make you think? Well I am sorry. 23 Can you count me among your counterexamples? Since in fact, you do not agree with me or if you did you were confused as if you could change your life. Amor fati – the great yes for life (that is what I think). Or can I can simply say know thyself (nosce te iosum)? 24 Kant's lectures seem to imply more Greek and the published texts had more Latin. Was there some influence by the Greeks on Kant? Some say very little, I think we need to look at the lectures and the books he owned. 25 When Nietzsche called philosophers crypto-priests did he know whom he was speaking about? Answer: Yes. 26 Take the ladder of life upward not to the beyond as such, but above the mud. The meaning of life is the meaning of the earth. 148 27 Epigrams maybe shorten aphorisms. 28 Long live the final moments of humanity. Ideals that have been sent home. Let us attempt to "improve" man – where could we begin such at task? Why would we want to? Reasons. Values. The ultimate ground for trying to make improvements to humanity is lacking. Ideal-lessnessing. Does that make sense to you? 29 We must always attempt to overstep our inner limits as philosophers. The shadow is out of the light. 30 Man is a mix between animal (sensuousness) and the rationale (nonsensuousness), so says the metaphysically nature of man. Where is there something more? What is man? Who is man? Who is man? Can there be an answer? Heidegger used the expression Dasein (or I think closer to his intentions are: Da-Sein) for man is as Da-Sein. 31 Why is there no goal for mankind? Stumbling around seems to be normal – why is that? 32 Why do "we" leave behind thinking in words for others to read and expect that this will all make sense now or in the future to anyone? Answer: past practice. Thank you Plato. 33 Leitmotifs (GA 65 and Heidegger of the late 1930s) Distress Language, Semiotics, and rhetoric Types of thinking Dialogue with Nietzsche, Hölderlin, Schelling, Heidegger Animal rationale and Da-sein and Being (Seyn, Sein) The ones to come and Nietzsche's Overman 34 149 But my suspicions are as normal thinking just does not cut the cake. Why do philosophers think they can use some form of common sense to make sense out the wonder of life? 35 And now it seems that we are at the cross road after the decline of everything to find what is the true nature of philosophy. Perhaps there are only a few things left for philosophers. Philosophers (Kant, Heidegger) have painted us into a small part of the universe and there is very little left for us. The critical bottleneck for philosophy is very small. Almost nothing is left. Why bother? 36 We have grown accustomed to ask the Being question, but what about the question about the nature of the interrogative? The nature of Da-sein is to be open to possibilities, which allows us to ask the question or to ask the question of questions. Why can we ask questions at all? My question for you is: why dogs do not ask questions? 37 While I confess that I know the difference between scholars, philosophers, and thinkers – I still need to think it through for any writing project. 38 As a consequence, it is something like the known truth must be known at some basic level for error to then later be known to us. If we know truth, then how do we then know the false and error of truth? The whole truth is some how we know then error or false of the whole truth as well. 39 One must also say: Heidegger and Nietzsche wanted to smash philosophy as we thought we knew it – the method issue hit them both. 40 If we are against method and do not allow the use of any methodology to find the truth, then how would ever find the truth again without a method? Philosophy of science, social science, and perhaps anything close to "science" must have a method – but if we throw out the method, then where do we stand? Can we use certain methodologies based on some sort of regional ontologies (realms of beings)? The issue of categories and the fundamental unity of these categories lead us back to metaphysics or is there way to use method and not end up in metaphysics? 41 150 Can I speak directly to the reader? As you read this can you know that I am talking with you and you have to think along with me; and this use of third person does not work, since I need to talk with you. I do not want to shout but you need to read all of these philosophical texts with your third ear. Please enjoy and open your mind to thinking and philosophizing, which is what attempted down here on the paper you are reading now. 42 Although Heidegger does not quote this specific remark in Nietzsche, there is an important passage by Nietzsche in the Pre-Platonic Philosophers lecture series from 1870s at the University of Basel. In the section on Heraclitus (most likely dating from 1872), Nietzsche wrote a real propitious remark, "Well, this is the intuitive perception of Heraclitus; there is no thing of which we many say, "it is". He rejects Being. He knows only Becoming, the flowing." Nietzsche then continues in a few sentences later, "Heraclitus thus sees only the One, but in the sense opposite to Parmenides." (et. p. 6263). Although Nietzsche here realizes the ontological issues, he does not make it a central issue or even a question for his thinking. For Nietzsche this is one remark among thousands of pages, for Heidegger this is the most damming and telling remark that Nietzsche could make. 43 "All the highest values are of the first rank; all the highest concepts, that which has Being, the unconditional, the good, the true, the perfect-all these cannot have become and must therefore be causa sui." (Twilight of the Idols, "Reason" in Philosophy" section 4). How can these dead concepts change and be involved in any kind of "becoming"? How can the perfect and the final perfection every change? Can you hear Plato's eternal ideas speaking through these concepts? Can grammar real make sense only with metaphysics as the roots of our language and thought? 44 Ontology is not just one discipline among other philosophical discipline like ethics, epistemology, and logic (think of Lotze's thinking on this issue); but rather, philosophy is only as ontology. Certainly, Heidegger and Nietzsche were antipodes on ontology. Even though Heidegger wants to make Nietzsche the last metaphysician, he has hard time with this notion, since when we read Nietzsche out of the box, he sounds like anti-theological and anti-morality is his basic thinking. 45 I want to be read with brandy or single malt scotch, I think reading these words with beer would make no sense. Can a writer tell you what to drink with his writings? I ask you my reader, but perhaps water is not enough. 151 46 Will to Power #958 (1884). "I write for a species of man that does not yet exist: for the "masters of the earth." Where is Nietzsche looking for these masters? Are you talking about the military masters or rather the final philosophers who are the philosopher-kings (Plato's Republic)? Nietzsche should be clearer. I think he might be still looking. 47 Will to Power #1059 (1884). "Means of enduring it: the revaluation of all values. No longer joy in certainty but uncertainty; no longer "cause and effect" but the continually creative; no longer will to preservation but to power; no longer the humble expression, "everything is merely subjective," but "it is also our work! -Let us be proud of it!" Nietzsche is shouting at this point to move from the no-sayers to the yes-sayers big time, let us help him. Can we just simple changes the values and sit back and wait and see what happens – no this is where the "will" pushes out in front toward the changes in the values with power and the great yes-saying. 48 Will to Power #1064 (1885). "Timelessness" to be rejected. At any precise moment of a force, the absolute conditionality of a new distribution of all its forces is given: it cannot stand still. "Change" belongs to the essence, therefore also temporality: with this, however, the necessity of change has only been posited once more conceptually." Why would Nietzsche even think that we were for timelessness? If Nietzsche could have talked with Marx or Lange, then these issues would have gone away. That is why Nietzsche always talking with people on the street, namely, the believers he grew up and not philosophers who have left all of this eternal stuff behind. What would Nietzsche and Marx talk about if they had met? 49 Heidegger does not mention Schelling in Being and Time (1927). However, in the little essay by Heidegger entitled "My way to Phenomenology," he mentions on his walks with his Professor Dr. Carl Braig (circa 1911) ". . . I first heard of Schelling's and Hegel's significance for speculative theology as distinguished from the dogmatic system of Scholasticism" (p. 73). In a very early work of Heidegger's entitled "Review of Ernst Cassirer's Mythical Thought" (1928), he compares Cassirer's position to the later Schelling's work on mythology. In the last paragraph Heidegger writes, "The critical questions here brought forward cannot detract from the merit of Cassirer's work insofar as it is the first attempt since Schelling to place myth as a systematic problem within the range of philosophy (p. 45)." Heidegger knew Schelling well. 50 Heidegger, echoing Schelling said, "Both rationalism and irrationalism represent an external labeling of the standpoint of the Hegelian philosophy, which does not succeed in 152 unfolding this philosophy in terms of the fundamental issue in question." (et. P.30). Calling Hegel's system some kind of -ism does not really help engage and encounter Hegel's thought. Hegel is perhaps an idealist, but does that help us think with Hegel or just eliminate him from considerations. 51 Hegel's Philosophy of Right shows that, for Hegelianism, rationalism is important. Hegel in 1820 wrote, "What is rational is actual and what is actual is rational." (et p. 10). This is the famous passage. But in another few later paragraphs, Hegel stated his position even stronger, where he says, "To comprehend what is, this is the task of philosophy, because what is, is reason." (et. p. 11). This is closer to Hegel's core philosophy than many of Hegel's other remarks. Hegel is putting down exactly where he stands! 52 Where does Hegel's specific use of the term Notion/Concept (der Begriff) come from? Historical usage? The last chapter in the Phenomenology of Spirit is "absolute Knowing" and the last chapter in the Science of Logic is the "absolute Idea" then why did he not use statement "the Notion" as part of the chapter heading? Why not a whole book just with that title? Why not just say – Plato in German? 53 What is left out of Hegel's system and why? Where is Hegel on the irrationalism issue? Is there any room for faith in Hegel's metaphysical system? His ontology seems to be theology and his theology is in his ontology, so where is faith in the system? There does not seem to be any need for faith. 54 The purpose of the Critique of Pure Reason is to find proper method (a critique) and procedure for metaphysics and the whole of philosophy. The critique of pure reason is derived architectonically from principles and is complete and certain. It is not the 'system of science' (Wissenschaft) itself and it is not a doctrine, but it catalogs the sources, the boundaries, and the entire outline of the science. The Critique of Pure Reason is a propaedeutic (preparation), it is after physics, and yet before metaphysics; it is a prior, namely, a "metaphysics of metaphysics." This is before ontology, where ontology belongs solely to metaphysics. This is an architectonic of all cognition or knowledge (Erkenntnis) from pure reason (rational not practical). The Critique of Pure Reason is to provide the foundation before metaphysics. The critical method has to be clarified first before moving onto any metaphysics, to any ontology. The foundations of any future metaphysics must have those foundations called in question and if we are to build the entire metaphysical system, only then must we be on the rock solid foundations at bottom. You see how Kant's project is laying the foundational ground of any future 153 metaphysics and those terms and ideas should not seem out of context and too grandiose a project, since that is Kant as his core. 55 How come Hegel's most famous book in America had so many titles and do these changes reflect philosophical issues? Let us examine what has happen to Hegel first major book. First title: System of Science: First Part, Science of the Experience of Consciousness (1806-1807). Note: Title appears on some the published books. Some books have both the first and second title pages in different places. The manuscript was essential completed October 1806. This first title can be considered the working title of the book until Hegel got closer to the publication. Second Title: System of Science: First Part, Science of the Phenomenology of Spirit (1807). Third Title: System of Science: First Part: The Phenomenology of Spirit. Note: This is the final title in 1807. Most the books published in 1807 have this on the title page and only this title page. Fourth Title: Phenomenology of Spirit (1832). Note: title as it appears in the Collected Works. Publication begins right after Hegel's death in 1931. (Werke, Berlin, 1832-1845). Note: Hegel or should we say someone has the "the" (German=Der) dropped. The final German title is: Phänomenologie des Geistes. 56 Aphorisms are both a closed and open universe. A good aphorism should be selfcontained and yet open up a whole new universe within thought. Aphorisms almost by definition are against the essay and especial the form of the "book". Why has the "book" taken over as the common way of writing? After every event these days, then someone will write the book about it or if it is really interesting then the motion picture will be produced. Reality TV is against the non-reality of most TV shows. Back to the aphorism. Can we speak of the cold hard steel and razor sharpness of a good aphorism or is it rather the soft and flexibility of a contextual aphorism that bends and is mushy? Clearly, aphorisms are both and can be both – let them unwind and hit the spot! 57 In summa: the truth is known and will be written down and can be re-produced for everyone to see and hear. If you believe that then you will never have the "truth" since the "truth" is in motion and is flux itself. You want the chaos to be part of your world or you will be lost for ever in the appearance of reality where all is false. 154 58 The thing is only as relationships and their context. 59 "The truth of be-ing cannot be said with the ordinary language that today is ever more widely misused and destroyed by incessant talking. Can this truth ever be said directly, if all language is still the language of beings? Or can a new language for be-ing be invented? No. And even if this could be accomplished – and even without artificial wordformation-such a language would not be a saying language." (GA 65, section 35). Heidegger speaks to what we can do with language and it comes up short. Our task: a saying language, yes – that is why Heidegger has laid down for us to pick up. Can we do language that will allow us to have a saying language of the truth of Being? First we need silence to hear Being, then we need a saying language to "say" the meaning and truth of Being. This has nothing to so with the TV or the stock market or our current political situation. As you ponder this question, I think it becomes increasingly clear that Heidegger in this mode has nothing to do with what passes as modern "philosophy". 60 Freedom Truth Being Will Factum No-thing (Enough said for you?) 61 Heidegger said, "Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is among those philosophical works which, as long as there is philosophy on this earth at all, daily become inexhaustible anew. It is one of those works that have already pronounced judgment over every future attempt to "overcome" them by only passing them by." (What is a thing, p. 61, 1935-36). What has happen to Kant's philosophy over the pass two hundred years? The neoKantian and the back to Kant movement have all past into history by now and still Kant's philosophy dominates and is studied a new by every generation. The life of Kant's philosophy perhaps has less and less to do with "us" living Kant's philosophy and more to do with our working on Kant's thought. For Heidegger this includes the unthought in Kant's philosophy which again directs us to Kant. 62 Heidegger is contra Nietzsche on the Greeks and of course Heidegger contra Idealism, realism, Platonism, and metaphysics. Our question is what is the relationship between our thinking today and the whole history of philosophy? But this is not just a simple passive relationship. Our historical period and our age is part of our thinking, since this is not an ahistorical reading of our past. Heidegger has addresses this in 1927 and this was written after Being and Time, which was final published in early 1927. Heidegger said, "These three basic components of phenomenological method reduction, 155 construction, destruction belong together in their content and must receive grounding in their mutual pertinence. Construction in philosophy is necessarily destruction, that is to say, a de-constructing of traditional concepts carried out in a historical recursion to the tradition. And this not a negation of the tradition or a condemnation of it as worthless; quite the reverse, it signifies precisely a positive appropriation of tradition." (Basic Problems in Phenomenology, E.T. p.23). We do not reject early philosophical thought but rather we "deal with it", we include within us. This is not including within the system like what Hegel did with his absolute system. 63 Is freedom just another empty word or does it have some meaning on our earth? Answer: freedom is not an absolute. 64 The "Back to Kant" (E. Zeller and then Otto Liebmann was core of this movement) movement is the philosophical context of Neo-Kantianism and is basically a rejection and an attempt at overcoming of G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) and his followers. Karl Marx (1818-1883), Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), and Neo-Kantians are against Hegel. The movement against Hegel shaped most of the philosophical thinking in 1800s. A Hegelian, Rudolf Lotze (1817-1881) and his Kantian critique of Hegel is sometimes credited with the being the forerunner of the Neo-Kantian movement. We and Heidegger can be viewed as an attempt to be a countermovement to Hegel's system. Can we escape Hegel? 65 Nietzsche said, "Philosophy reduced to "theory of knowledge," in fact no more than a timid epochism and doctrine of abstinence a philosophy that never gets beyond the threshold and takes pains to deny itself the right to enter that is philosophy in its last throes, and end, an agony, something inspiring pity. How could such a philosophy dominate !" (Beyond Good and Evil; Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, p. 123). The weakness of our current philosophy and philosophy departments can be seen in Nietzsche's thought. The thin ice that is epistemology is what leads many good minds down the garden path to nowhere. In his work on Leibniz, Heidegger says the following about Neo-Kantians and epistemology: "It is crucial for understanding the Kantian concept of reality. Simple uncertainty about those connections misled the entire neoKantian interpretation of the Critique of Pure Reason into a misguided search for an epistemology in Kant." Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz, 1928 (GA 26). (The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, E.T. p 65). Heidegger says else where, "The interpretation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason as epistemology completely misses the true meaning." (Basic Problems in Phenomenology, E.T. p. 128). So many philosophers do not read Kant and yet think they understand what Kant was up to – why, can they not read. What is the purpose of the Critique of Pure Reason? Or, for that matter pick almost any major philosophical work and its purpose are often subject to many different interpretations. What is the purpose of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit – the same issue, so many different interpretations of what is the purpose of Hegel's text? 156 66 If we are the light and just a part of the light, then what is the light? These images still does not lead us any further then before. I am the light. Ok, then what? I am also the dark and the interplay of the light and the dark. This whole is more than parts, but we are more than reason. But what more is more to the nature of humanity? 67 The history of Being is not the history of metaphysics. 68 What is that a funding problem for departments? As the concept of the university has become less and philosophy has become even less than less, since the culture has defined the university as the ticket to the job market. How does that work for philosophy, since the market is a very small place for PhDs that teach introduction to philosophy, logic, business ethics, and moral problems for the masses? Value metaphysics re-baked and rebaked – yes, it may take centuries before metaphysics is final left behind –if ever! Can we still ponder the silence of Being? 69 Heidegger said, "The whole of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is a circling around the problem of transcendence which in its original sense is precisely not an epistemological problem, but the problem of freedom without Kant's having secured this phenomenon of transcendence radically from the ground up. (Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz, 1928 (GA26), The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, E.T. p 165). This deeper problem in Kant is precisely why the Critique of Pure Reason is not about ontic knowledge if anything it would be ontological knowledge, but even this does go to the core of Kant. That is why Heidegger points to the question of freedom. Although Heidegger worked on the Critique of Pure Reason in the early days of lecturing, but many of the later lectures on Kant are other Kantian texts. 70 Are you tired and want the dry air of philosophical abstraction? 71 Heidegger starts his analysis with saying that, "Schelling's treatise on freedom is one of those very rare works . . . "(GA 42, et. p.4). Now, from a different point of view, G.W.F. Hegel remarked about this work, "Schelling had made known a single treatise on Freedom. It is of a deep speculative nature, but it stands alone. In philosophy a single piece cannot be developed" (Hegel's History of Philosophy, et. p.13). This tells us more about Hegel's position than his understanding of what Schelling is trying to do with his 157 work on freedom. This ripped up Hegel's system by exploding the absolute system from within through freedom. The sound of freedom split the air but was not heard by Hegel. 72 Kant says for example, in Critique of Pure Reason, A13, "Transcendental philosophy is here the idea of a science, for which the critique of pure reason is to outline the entire plan architectonically . . . "and in Critique of Pure Reason, A847 "The original idea of a philosophy of pure reason itself prescribes this division; it is therefore architectonic, in conformity with its essential ends . . . " Kant's concept of system is clearly architectonic . Kant was a great system thinker, but the concept and implementation of the system clearly reach its climax in Hegel. Hegel is perhaps the greatest system thinker ever. Why is the second part of the Critique of Pure Reason hardly ever read and even less understood? What is living and dead in Kant -the architectonic would be the at the top of the list of what is dead by most contemporaries accounts, but this is because they do not know the core and purpose of Kant's philosophy. Kant saw reason and system combined and it was taking him a while to get it all together in one system, however, I think it is clear Kant's direction. 73 Who was Schelling and why is he important? F.W.J. Schelling (1775-1854) was a roommate with G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) and the famous classical poet, Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) at the Tübingen Stift. His first major publication Ideen zur Philosophie der Natur (1797) was published at the age of twenty-two. He was appointed to a chair of Philosophy at Jena University, 1798 (age of twenty-three). In 1803 he moved to a chair at Wurzburg University until 1806. During this time he wrote his treatise on human freedom in 1809 (age of thirty-six). This was to be his last major work published during his life time even though he wrote volumes. These were not to be published. Back to1806, he meets the theologian Franz von Baader (1765-1841) and was reading Jakob Bohme (1575-1624). Other influences on Schelling at this time were Christoph Oetinger, Paracelsus, Emanuel Swedenborg, Johann Bengel, Saint Martin, Johannes Tauler, Meister Eckhart, and Nicolaus of Cusanus. In 1841, he was finally called to University of Berlin to try to overturn Hegel's influence after Hegel's death in 1831. In Schelling's Berlin lectures was a group of students who perhaps became more famous than Schelling himself, namely, Søren Kierkegaard, J. Burckhardt, F. Engels, L. Feuerbach, and M. Bakunin. Schelling has become more famous in the twentieth century through his influence on Paul Tillich (1886-1965) and his theology. Heidegger has lectured and written about Schelling treaties on human freedom. One of Heidegger's teachers, Carl Braig (1853-1923) was deeply influence by Schelling as well. Schelling is more than his biographical information. 74 There is a religious dimension to the absolute system of Hegel's metaphysical construction. Hegel included a section in the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion 158 entitled, "The metaphysical Notion or Conception of the Idea of God." Hegel declared, "The metaphysical Notion of God here means that we have to speak only of the pure Notion which is real through its own self. Spirit or the Absolute Idea is what appears simply as the unity of the Notion and reality in such a way that the Notion in itself represents totality..." (et P. 348). Hegel thought something similar in the Science of Logic, when he said, "God as absolute Spirit, which alone is the true nature of God." (et. 527). The later Hegel was fond of quoting the Bible and his wife become even more religious after Hegel's death in 1831. According to Heidegger theology, philosophy, metaphysics, and ontology are closely linked. This position is not in line with what passes as Philosophy on most university campus today. Heidegger says, "Philosophy's questioning is always and in itself both onto-logical and theological in the very broad sense. Philosophy is Ontotheology. The more originally it is both in one, the more truly it is philosophy. And Schelling's treatise is thus one of the most profound works of philosophy because it is in a unique sense ontological and theological at the same time (GA 42 et. p.51)." In the first part of the Science of Logic, Hegel has a section entitled "With What Must the Science Begin?" At this end of this section Hegel states: "... (and God has the absolutely undisputed right that the beginning be made with him) . . . "(p.78). Why should we start and finish with God? Need I even ask this question? 75 Hegel in the Science of Logic (Wissenschaft der Logik, et. p. 48) wrote the following about the Phenomenology of Spirit, "The path of this movement goes through every form of the relation of consciousness to the object and had the Notion (Begriff) of Science (Wissenschaft) for its result." What is the result of the Phenomenology of Spirit it is the final results of self-consciousness raised to the science (that means philosophical science of the time, meaning, and Hegel's absolute metaphysical system) as philosophy. Or, in other words, that means introduction to philosophical thinking. It is the process of getting out of the cave into the light of day (Plato's ideas as absolute knowing, on the way to the Science of Logic's absolute idea). Think of the connection to Plato's Republic and allegory of the cave. Should the process called the phenomenology of spirit (or the first title, System of Science: First Part, Science of the Experience of Consciousness) or should logic be the real introduction to philosophy and the philosophical way of thinking? Hegel went back and forth on this problem and the Science of Logic has an interesting essay at the beginning with the question being "With what must the science begin?" Also, he should be noted that Hegel never used the Phenomenology of Spirit for teaching. As a historical note, Hegel was reading the proofs (January 16, 1807) when he wrote, "Soon, but not quite yet, I will be able to say bon voyage to the child. But while reading through the manuscript for printing errors this one last time I truly often wished I could clear the ship here and there of ballast and make it swifter. With a second edition to follow soon-if it pleases the gods! (si diis placet?!) -everything shall come out better." (Hegel: The Letters, p. 119). Of course, he was re-working the Phenomenology of Spirit right before he died in 1831, but there never was a second edition (during 1808, 1809 or 1810) instead he went to work on the Science of Logic (first part in 1812) while he was 159 editing the newspaper in Bamberg. The Phenomenology of Spirit was somewhat forgotten by Hegel. 76 Hegel wrote a very important passage at the end of the Science of Logic. This is the nucleus of Hegel and his method of creating his philosophical system. Hegel said, "By virtue of the nature of the method just indicated, the Science (Wissenschaft) exhibits itself as a circle returning upon itself, the end being wound back into the beginning, the simple ground by mediation; this circle is moreover a circle of circles, for each individual member as ensouled by the method is reflected into itself, so that in returning into the beginning it is at the same time the beginning of the new member." (Science of Logic, et p.842). This is connected with another remark at the end of the Logic, "The method itself by means of this moment expands itself into a system." (Science of Logic, et. P. 838). With these two thought you should be able to see how Hegel conceptual created and then tied his system into an absolute system that had at its center the movement and yet, the complete totality of the world and God. Hegel's metaphysical "notion" as method is the entelecheia that is the internal movement of spiritual reality unfolding and expands itself in to the system. The circle of circles has an interesting connection to Kant, when he said in the later part of the Critique of Pure Reason, "Reason is driven by a propensity of its nature to go beyond its use in experience...and to find peace only in the completion of its circle in a self-subsisting systematic whole." (CPR, A798/B826). (In German, Die Vernunft wird durch einen Hang ihrer Natur getrieben, über den Erfahrungsgebrauch hinauszugehen, und nur allererst in der Vollendung ihres Kreises, in einem für sich .... bestehenden systematischen Ganzen, Ruhe zu finden). Reason finds its peace in the circle, which is in the systematic whole of a complete and absolute metaphysical system. Kant wanted and knew that reason would lead to the science of a metaphysical system, but he did not make it up the mountain, but the direction is clear where Kant wanted to go and was headed toward a system. It took Hegel to put in all together. Did he get help from Plato or Aristotle (entelecheia)? Or, where did the help come from? Some philosophers think it may have been Schelling. According to Hegel the first part of Science of Logic is based on the overcoming of Spinoza. That seems a great stretch. But it also shows how much that Hegel has taken past philosophical thought and his dialogue with other philosopher and transformed within his system. 77 Late in the Beiträge Heidegger asks the question: "What if that domain of decision as a whole, flight or arrival of gods, were itself the end?" (GA 65, section 254). The end is what has happen to the question of the gods (Götter). Has our gods given up on us? Is there no hope left for the hint of the gods? At this point Heidegger would warn us not to use reason to come with a rational argument on what it means to speak of the flight or arrival of the last gods. We use the word "ponder" to express the en-thinking in general, since the expression "ponder" gives us a sense of non-rational, non-representational, noncalculative thinking processes. So, we need to ponder the last gods. 160 78 In the author's forward to the multi-volume Nietzsche Band I-II (1961), Heidegger wrote, "The matter, the point in question, is in itself a confrontation (Auseinandersetzung)" (et. p. xxxviii). Heidegger goes on to say in next few pages, "Confrontation is genuine criticism. It is the supreme way, the only way, to a true estimation of a thinker. In confrontation we undertake to reflect on his thinking and to trace it in its effective force, not in its weakness. To what purpose? In order that through the confrontation we ourselves become free for the supreme exertion of thinking." (Nietzsche Volume 1, et. p. 4-5). What is the purpose of reading a philosopher? The pivotal task is not scholarship or philology or witty repartee, but rather philosophical thinking and to stimulate a genuine dialogue with philosophers. This exertion of thinking is not linked to the notional thinking of Hegel. 79 Heidegger said something incredibly profound in his reading of Nietzsche that has to do more with philosophy in general. Heidegger's remark is "The greater a revolution is to be, the more profoundly must it plunge into its history." ("Nietzsche's Overturning of Platonism," 1936). A paradigm shift or a revolution within philosophy can only come about by a plunge into the history of philosophy and for that we need a well-developed idea and concept of a Metahistory of philosophy. 80 There are the great philosophers who read and think through the history of philosophy, like Hegel and Heidegger. The counterexample seems to be Ludwig Wittgenstein (18891951), who had no understanding of the history of philosophy. Scholars are finding more and more of Schopenhauer's influence in Wittgenstein writings. Wittgenstein did not read widely in the history of philosophy. But he did read poetry. 81 Kant often uses these analogies and images of building a house. The second division of the Critique of Pure Reason is called "Transcendental doctrine of method". On the incredibly first page we hear Kant's images. He talks of the building edifices, building materials, height, strength, erection of a sturdy dwelling, etc (CPR, A707/B735). Thus, when we come to the last chapter of the section and we hear from Kant that there are 'only ruins,' then keeping with this analogy from Kant's view there is nothing to really 'build-on' from history of philosophy. Therefore, I understand Kant's own position (from the 'transcendental point of view') that the history of philosophy is not helpful or important, it is in 'ruins'. I understand Kant is saying that Kant's own transcendental or critical idealism is not based on the history of philosophy and it totally unique to Kant. In other words, Kant has to begin his building from the ground-up or from the essential foundations. There is nothing to build-on, only a little dirt to begin the building. 161 Therefore, sticking with this image, for Kant, the ground is reason and reason is what we need to use to build any foundations at all. 82 Kant said, "Carteius, Malebranche, Leibniz, and Wolffus, the last whom, through his industry, produced a systema of philosophy, were in recent times the ones who improved philosophy, and were its true fathers. All of the efforts of our philosophy are 1) dogmatic, 2) critical. Among critical philosophers Locke deserves priority." (Lectures on Logic, et. p. 24). Where is David Hume? Yes, Kant is saying that Hume was not among the true fathers of philosophy, he is not worthy of mention. Since, Kant is considers himself as a critical philosopher, it is Locke that is at the top of the list of modern philosophers. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason was reviewed 1782 by J.G.H. Feder (1740-1820). In this review Kant was portrayed as just restating Bishop George Berkeley's (1685-1753) Idealism and Kant responded is the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (2nd edition, 1787). However, in this passage we note two things of interest: a) Kant points to more recent philosophers as the 'true fathers' of philosophy, b) again Locke seems to be praised for his importance. Kant often has critical remarks about Berkeley, for example, calling him a "dogmatic idealism" (CRP, B274). Kant discusses this whole issue with Berkeley in his "Refutation of Idealism" (CRP, B274-287). Again David Hume is missing from the discussion – the text supports other philosophers as important for Kant. Funny, it is not taught that way in the little sandbox theory of the history of philosophy. It is interesting no matter how many current philosophers read Kant and article on Kant, nevertheless, even basic aspects of Kant's philosophy are misconstrued and confused by philosophers who should know better but are just using the old connection between philosophers. 83 Nietzsche said, remarked, thought, wrote down, and it was translated into English and comes to us as "History should speak only of what is great and unique, of exemplary models." Notebooks: Summer 1872-Early 1873 19 [10]. This sounds a little like Hegel's great men theory of history, but Nietzsche takes it to a higher point. The masses are as you might think the Marxian proletariat, but for Nietzsche only the highest points for mankind count – only the great people of the age what should be spoken about, hence the rest of us or you are not part of the higher history. In our age the media has shown us who is worthy of network coverage and all of the dirty personal lives that come out in the court cases. Historically, remember the individual was above all not a citizen of a nation; he/she were a member of an estate (Stand in German, état in French). The developing concept of the "nation-state" was a big deal for Hegel and Nietzsche, who both thought that Europe would come together as a single nation (sooner than it is). 84 162 Nietzsche said, remarked, thought, wrote down, and it was translated into English and comes to us as" Philosophers appear during those times of great danger, when the wheel of time is turning faster and faster. Together with art, they step into the place vacated by myth. But they are far ahead of their time, since the attention of their contemporaries only turns toward them very slowly. A people which is becoming conscious of its dangers produces a genius." Notebooks: Summer 1872-Early 1873 19 [17]. Philosophers are needed as cultural changes takes place at a fast pace (think of the 1960s). Together with art we need a new myth of who we are and what we are up. The race to the moon and Johnston's Great Society, all point toward the grandiose plans and myths of the improvement and betterment of mankind or Americans anyway. Are we aware of our dangers today? Do we understand Heidegger's notion of our age as the lack of distress of the lost of Being? Heidegger is leading us down a path and also toward climbing a mountain with him – are we ready? 85 If you are looking for something shocking and dirty words that would jump off of the page and make you think of something shocking – insert your own imagination at this point, since what is in your head is a lot more than I can write down, so anyway here is your place to have that happen in your head. Wow was it good for you? 86 Interesting Marx is dying and the power of his thought from a high point is dropping fast at this time. We will see if history will tell a different story. 87 Do the number of dissertations tell us anything about philosophy itself or just some kind of sociology of philosophy? These numbers are from year range of: 1997-2001 (as of October 2003). The number of citations changes as they load more information into the database, so this information is only good for October 2003, but it does show trends. Aristotle 67 citations Bergson 10 citations. Derrida 46 citations. Descartes 38 citations Dilthey 3 citations. Fichte 9 citations. Foucault 77 citations. Gadamer 25 citations. Hegel 93 citations. Heidegger 148 citations. Husserl 23 citations. Jaspers 5 citations Kant 158 citations. 163 Kierkegaard 41 citations. Leibniz 28 citations. Levinas 55 citations. Marcuse 5 citations. Marx 38 citations Merleau-Ponty 26 citations Nietzsche 130 citations Plato 69 citations. Sartre 39 citations Scheler 3 citations Schelling 12 citations. Schleiermacher 17 citations. Schopenhauer 10 citations. Wittgenstein 81 citations. So the general rank of the recent dissertations (1997-2001) is Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Hegel, and then Wittgenstein. Do you find something wrong with this approach as if numbers mean anything in philosophy? What is taught in philosophy department is different than this...why is that? This shows the interest of research. But some departments are trying to do less Heidegger dissertations, since they are so many young philosophers on the market with Heidegger backgrounds. What is the market for young philosophers and where should they stand? 88 Nietzsche said, remarked, thought, wrote down, and it was translated into English and comes to us as "In a certain sense, Kant's influence was detrimental, because belief in metaphysics has been lost. No one would rely upon his "thing in itself" as if it were a principle which could master anything." Notebooks: Summer 1872-Early 1873 19 [28]. Here we have one of Nietzsche's attacks against Kant, since for Nietzsche metaphysic would not have been lost if Kant had come up something more believable than the crazy idea of the "thing-in-itself". Kant was not tricky enough for Nietzsche; we want Kant to help us with our problem of making room for "faith". Why could Kant not make us into total believers? Kant had problems of his own to try and make a believer out of himself. It was Kant's honesty that became his biggest problem, since he knew too much. 89 Nietzsche said, remarked, thought, wrote down, and it was translated into English and comes to us as "Philosophy should hold fast to that spiritual mountain range which stretches across the centuries, and therewith, to the eternal fruitfulness of everything that is great." Notebooks: Summer 1872-Early 1873 19 [33]. Nietzsche often speaks about the spiritual/sacred mountains – but for non-believer this is nonsense. What is the meaning of the earth? Can the Greeks help us out after the death of God and the end of 164 Christ Dom? Can we try to understand Hegel, Schelling, Schleiermacher, Brentano, Nietzsche, and Heidegger and their return to the Greeks as the attempt to reenergize western civilization without the whole Christian tradition? What is back in the preChristian era that will sustain us in our new myths? We live my myths? 90 The old game of attempting to see the various philosophers influence on Heidegger is almost over. With Nietzsche and with many philosophers Heidegger is completely contra to their philosophical positions. In one of the most telling quotes from Heidegger on this subject is when he said about Hegel, "...to place Hegel's system in the commanding view and then to think in a totally opposite direction. (GA 65). 91 Nietzsche was on the verge of seeing through his inversion of Platonism, but taking his overall considerate is still within the web of Platonism. Western philosophy is just a series of footnotes to Plato according to a famous saying by Alfred North Whitehead. However, with Heidegger he sees this as the metahistory of metaphysics and forgottenness of Being as being caught in the limitation of Platonism or the inadequacy of western metaphysics. After Heidegger sees these limitations, this is the way that Heidegger wants to break out in to a new, other beginning for philosophy. Heidegger's break out is done through a confrontation with Platonism and its entanglement in Nietzsche's inversion of Platonism. Western metaphysics has happen all within the limitation and realm of Platonism. Nietzsche sees Christianity as Platonism for the people. For Heidegger, Nietzsche is simply the extreme opposition (the antagonist opponent) to eternal truth and ideas of Platonism. Although Nietzsche was reading many of the early Greek philosophers, the task for Nietzsche is still within the dominion of the fundamental trends of his engagement with Platonism. It should be noted that there is nothing of Kant or Hegel or the German philosophers in Nietzsche's on-going development and thinking. The crux to Nietzsche for Heidegger is Nietzsche's opposition to Platonism. For Heidegger, Nietzsche is trapped within the limited horizon of Platonism. Heidegger said, "Nietzsche remains caught in metaphysics: from beings to Being; and he exhaust all possibilities of this basic position..." (GA 65 182, et. p. 127). Hence, according to Heidegger, Nietzsche task is simply the overturning (Umkehrung) of Platonism. 92 Nietzsche does have his own way out of Platonism, which he summed up with the expression, "My recreation, my preference, my cure from all Platonism has always been Thucydides." (Twilight of the Idols, "What I Owe to the Ancients" section 3). Can Heidegger take this approach as way of metaphysics? Answer: no, metaphysics lives at 165 the central core of philosophy as such. Only by a radical transformation of philosophy can we hope to see a way out of the bottle (said the fly). 93 Nietzsche in an exceptionally telling passage in his autobiography, Ecce Homo outlines his philosophy in relationship to Heraclitus. Nietzsche said, "I retained some doubt in the case of Heraclitus, in whose proximity I feel altogether warmer and better than anywhere else. The affirmation of passing away and destroying, which is the decisive feature of a Dionysian philosophy; saying Yes to opposition and war; becoming, along with a radical repudiation of the very concept of Being (Sein) –all of this is clearly more closely related to me than anything else thought to date. The doctrine of the "eternal recurrence," that is, of the unconditional and infinitely repeated circular course of all things – this doctrine of Zarathustra might in the end have been taught already by Heraclitus. (Ecce Homo, "The Birth of Tragedy, section 3). In this passage Nietzsche shows us his closeness to Heraclitus, Dionysus, his connections to Zarathustra, and the doctrine of the eternal return of the same; but most important for Heidegger is thought that for Nietzsche, Heraclitus is involved in the "radical repudiation of the very concept of Being (Sein)" (radikaler Ablehnung, refusal). This is clearly where there is a split between Heidegger and Nietzsche on the issue of the rejection or refusal of Being, since for Heidegger Being is full and not empty or a fiction. 94 What is the decisive question that Nietzsche never found? Certainly as a pristine metaphysician Nietzsche could have to come to the question of "What is the nature of beingness (Seiendheit)?" Or, he could have asked the question "Why is there something, rather not nothing?" Nietzsche's own critique of metaphysics predetermined that Nietzsche would not follow down this path. This is where Nietzsche stands in league with Heidegger and their basic position of being anti-metaphysics. Heidegger wants to take the next step by not being caught in the web of being "anti-" metaphysics. He wants to leave it behind and stand completely outside of metaphysics. Our question is does Heidegger actually stand in a new beginning. Can we still have a relationship to metaphysics by freeing and purifying metaphysics? Heidegger's historical lectures are the way that Heidegger has attempted to engage philosophers from the past, that is, to bring them to life in the present. Even though these philosophers are as Hegel said, "...with respect to the inner essence of philosophy there are neither predecessors nor successors." (The Difference between Fichte's and Schelling's System of Philosophy, et. p.87). Philosophers stand side by side all thinking one thought but each in their own way. 166 95 Heidegger is contra Nietzsche as ontology is primary. Heidegger's position is exactly contra to Nietzsche thesis about the Being of beings as "empty fiction". It is through Heidegger's analysis of the Greeks (specifically, Anaximander, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plato, and also Aristotle) that Heidegger draws out his resplendent ontological thinking. On the other hand, Nietzsche does not find ontology as central in the Greeks. What does Nietzsche find? Nietzsche wrote a short note in 1885 that not only summarized his closeness to the Greeks but may have foreseen Heidegger's bond to the Greeks. Nietzsche wrote, "... with discovery of antiquity, the digging up ancient philosophy, above all of the pre-Socratics – the most deeply buried of all Greek temples! A few centuries hence, perhaps, one will judge that all German philosophy derives its real dignity from being a gradual reclamation of the soil of antiquity, and that all claims to "originality" must sound petty and ludicrous in relation to that higher claim of the Germans to have joined anew the bond that seemed to be broken, the bond with the Greeks, the hitherto highest type of man." (Will to Power, #419) (1885). In another note Nietzsche said in March-June 1888 (Will to Power, #437), "The real philosophers of Greece are those before Socrates". Nietzsche goes on to say, "Today we are again getting close to all those fundamental forms of world interpretation devised by the Greek spirit through Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Democritus, and Anaxagoras – we are growing more Greek by the day..." Will to Power, #419) (1885). From these remarks it is clear that Nietzsche realizes the immense impact the Greeks had on German philosophers and will have in the future. The image of the Greeks had a profound effect on Nietzsche's philosophy and thinking even without having Nietzsche pedantically following every translation of the Greek to the final degree. This is not a question of Nietzsche's Greek philological scholarship, but rather the tremendous impact and influence of the Greek image. Heidegger wrote in an early section of the first volume of his famous work on Nietzsche, "Apart from the world of the Greeks, which remained decisive for the whole of Nietzsche's life..." (Nietzsche volume 1, et p. 7). Clearly, the Greeks have more influence than Wagner or Schopenhauer; and the rest of Germans "German philosophy as a whole – Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, to the name the greatest... (Will to Power, #419). Although Nietzsche calls them the great ones, nevertheless, there is very little influence in the end of the bulk of Nietzsche's philosophy. Nietzsche is rare plant and he takes in a strong breath of philosophical air from the Greeks. 96 This is an example of notes on from a close reading. Martin Heidegger's Contributions to philosophy (from enowning) (1936-1939) Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) 167 Remarks on Sections 4 and 5. As most of already know that this text (not a "werke") is very dense and Heidegger is responding to his own thinking in a direct way, which means that Heidegger is not writing for "us" and in these passages he is not writing for his students. I take it that this is Heidegger "right off of the top". In an autobiographical way, he is thinking with himself – in other words, he is not explaining and giving us the context for all of his writing in this text. This is his "thinking". So, I have taken some passages from this text which seems to me to be the important sense of these sections. Now, of course we should note that these are taken out of context and I have more or less turned them into "representational thinking" as statements. I have elsewhere spent a lot of time to trying to understand Heidegger's encounter methodology with other philosophers, now we need to try to gain insight into how to come to grips with Heidegger through a Heideggerian methodology (hermeneutics, phenomenology – you name it). How would Heidegger read Heidegger? How would Heidegger expect "us" as thoughtful Heideggerians read Heidegger and writing about him? Heidegger seems to make us aware of the "how" of reading philosophical text than Kant or Hegel. However, it is clear that Nietzsche did actually talk to his "readers" about how to read him. Do we know anywhere that Heidegger has given us much direction on how to read his "real" philosophical texts (like GA 65)? We know he wanted most of the lectures on historical philosophical texts to be published before Beiträge was published – I think this gives us some indication of how we might read his texts. But I think we still have an open problem for Heideggerians on how to read Heidegger as Heidegger would want us to read him. I think it is interesting that some of his student's Protokoll have been published with the Gesamtausgabe. Issue #1. "Here everything is geared toward the sole and single question of the truth of be-ing, i. e., toward questioning. "The question concerning the "meaning" [of being], i.e., in accordance with the elucidation in Being and Time, the question concerning grounding the domain of projecting-open – and then, the question of the truth of be-ing – is and remains my question, and is my one and only question; for this question concerns what is most sole and unique." In the age of total lack of questioning anything, it is sufficient as a start to inquire into the question of all questions." "Seeking itself is the goal." "For the few who from time to time again ask the question, i.e., who put up anew the essential sway of truth for decision." 168 Ferrer: I have written an essay on "Martin Heidegger as Interrogator". This is the part of Heidegger where he is not "answering" the questions or giving out his philosophy on table for dinner; but is directing us to consider that philosophy is asking questions. Not that we know nothing and can only ask questions, but again, we need to be clear about formulating the question and of course for Heidegger which he makes very clear to us that there is only one question for him really. The question meaning or truth of the Being of beings. In another place he adds a little bit more... In his work on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (GA32, lecture 1930), Heidegger says, " . . . the inner necessities of the first and last problem of philosophy the question of Being" and he continues, "I have been concerned with renewing the question of ontology the most central problem of Western Philosophy the question of Being . . ." (E.T. p.13) Additional Heidegger says," We assert now that Being is the proper and sole theme of philosophy" (Basic Problems of Phenomenology (GA24, 1927 lecture), p11). "Philosophy is the theoretical conceptual interpretation of Being, of Being's structure and its possibilities. Philosophy is ontological." (Basic Problems of Phenomenology (GA24, lecture 1927), p.11). Note the dates from these lectures series. There maybe some development in terms of the "turn" (Kehre) that might leads us to think that Heidegger changed his ‚mind'; but to put in a different expression, we might say that it was change in view point, rather than a real change in Heidegger's thinking. Were there more changes after the ontological period in Heidegger? 1945-? Issue #2 Ferrer: Who are the rare? Some of these thoughts by Heidegger I get a feeling of Nietzsche in the background. "I do not wish to persuade anyone to philosophy: it is inevitable, it is perhaps also desirable, that the philosopher should be a rare plant.' (Will to Power, #420 1884). My first reading of this whole text is: Nietzsche is in the background. Nietzsche is certainly not in the foreground (Heidegger is in the foreground), but I think Nietzsche is much closer than Kant or Hegel. "For the rare who bring along the utmost courage for solitude, in order to think the nobility of Seyn and to speak of its uniqueness." Issue #3 "We must risk a projecting-open of be-ing's essential swaying as enowning, precisely because we do not know the mandate of our history." Ferrer: I think as we read this text it is important to see what Heidegger says about "our" place in the historical process, since he drops lots of hints for us along the way. What is the time, period, age, historical moment, historical beginning, etc for "us" asking the questions? Issue #4 Ferrer: The more I read this text the more I realize that Heidegger is radically transforming what it means to do philosophy. What is the nature of Philosophy and philosophical knowing 169 according to the Beiträge? How to do philosophy according to the Beiträge? One of the reasons this is a difficult text is because Heidegger is not just "telling" us some philosophical result, but he is "showing" what it means to do philosophy this way. Heidegger is not telling us about the house with four walls and it looks like it has green siding on the side of the house. The analogy is more like – Heidegger has moved us inside the house and there are no walls inside the house just space. Since there are no walls inside the house --it is like no other house you have ever been inside, that is, a different way of doing philosophizing. Thus, philosophers have a problem reading this text because it is not like any other philosophical texts that they had read and part of this problem is because Heidegger is actually doing something different not just giving us a picture or some proofs. Notice the word "transformation". "By contrast, in philosophical knowing a transformation of the man who understands takes place with the very first step – not in a moral, "existentiell" sense but rather with Da-sein as measure." Issue #5 Ferrer: I think Heidegger as made some points about the relationship between philosophy and theology, so I do not think this is traditional theology. Heidegger is not sure if the God or God or gods have come and gone for good or just hiding – which certainly does not sound like ontology and theology. BUT and I underscore the "but" Heidegger is making the point about being open to the divine (the God or God or gods). Heidegger did raise the questions and clearly thought about the divine, so on the one hand, we can not say that Heidegger was closed to the possibility, but it is not clear that he had an actual theology. In other words, I think this is an open question that Heidegger wanted to remain an open question. The Buddha was silent on some questions and Heidegger has been silent on some questions (does Da-sein in Being and Time have a soul?); but in this case, Heidegger wants to open the question and leave it open (at least that is my reading). "If gods are the undecided, because at the beginning the opening for godding is still denied, what does it mean to say: at the disposal of the gods? That word means to stand ready for being used in opening the open." Issue #6 Ferrer: I like this remark and thought from Heidegger. This makes the whole way of 'care' in Being and Time make more sense for me. These are all in relationship to Seyn. "Seeker, preserver, guardian, and caretaker: this is what care means as the basic trait of Dasein." Issue #7 Ferrer: I find this passage insightful for me in a way to understand Heidegger. The background for me is teleology, maybe even active nihilism. Heidegger takes all of the metaphysics out of the question and directs in toward his transformation of philosophy – all in a very neat way. I really enjoyed this brief text and the way Heidegger has brought in together. 170 "In this way the inceptual mindfulness of thinking becomes necessarily genuine thinking, i.e., a thinking that sets goals. What get set are not just any goal and not the goal in general, but the one and only and thus singular goal of our history. This goal is the seeking itself, the seeking of Seyn. It takes place and is itself the deepest find when man becomes the preserver of the truth of Seyn, becomes guardian and caretaker of that stillness, and is resolute in that." Think about Nietzsche and Spinoza and their anti-teleological direction. Remarks on sections: 41-44. Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Nietzsche said in Ecce Homo, I know my fate. One day my name will be associated with the memory of something tremendous – a crisis without equal on earth... ("Why I am a Destiny"). Ich kenne mein Loos. Es wird sich einmal an meinen Namen die Erinnerung an etwas Ungeheures anknüpfen,-an eine Krisis, wie es keine auf Erden gab... Section 41, Heidegger says, "transformation of man himself". These sections all revolve around a central issue: the decision. Heidegger is asking us to see and then to make a "decision". Although right here I am already in deep water because I use the expression "to make a decision", which sounds like something 'we' can do today or this morning when we woke – and that is not the case. It is not a personal decision that we are making. Side note: there is a very nice discussion by Heidegger at the bottom of English translation of page 58 and the top of page 59 (early section 42) about his methodology and the questioning approach that he is showing us. Heidegger also in section 42 used the expression Erdenken, en-thinking of Beyn, the attuning of questioning. In section 44 (et p. 62-63), Heidegger gives us ten "or" is it that he asks us "whether" accept A or B, with B being where Heidegger is headed or where Heidegger thinks we are all headed, since this is not psychology or sociology or some utopian thinking. Then Heidegger summarizes this with remark: "All of these decisions, which seem to be many and varied, are gathered into one thing only: whether Seyn definitively withdraws, or whether this withdrawal as refusal becomes the first truth and the other beginning of history." (GA 65, et. p., 63). Note: the methodology of the "or". How does the abandonment of Being announce itself? (See section 56, et. p. 82, German p. 117-118). The other beginning (Anfang) is a very important part of the Beiträge and it looks like this important part of Heidegger's direction (at least during this period). We have forthcoming volumes of GA with titles like: GA 70 Über den Anfang (1941), GA 72 Die Stege des Anfangs (1944). Basically, we have the first beginning with the Greeks and what Heidegger calls the other beginning (Anfang). Heidegger is pointing us toward the way. Even early in this text Heidegger is showing us his thinking: 171 "Contributions" enact a questioning along a pathway which is first traced out by the crossing to the other beginning, into which Western thinking is now entering. This pathway brings the crossing into the openness of history and establishes the crossing as perhaps a very long sojourn, in the enactment of which the other beginning of thinking always remains only intimation, but already decisive." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 3). „Die „Beiträge" fragen in einer Bahn, die durch den Übergang zum anderen Anfang, in den jetzt das abendländische Denken einrückt, erst gebahnt wird. Diese Bahn bringt den Übergang ins Offene der Geschichte und begründet ihn als einen vielleicht sehr langen Aufenthalt, in dessen Vollzug der andere Anfang des Denkens immer nur das Geahnte aber doch schon Entschiedene bleibt." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (GA 65, p. 4). Toward the end of section 44, Heidegger uses the expression: "Da-sein must also prepare for the stillness of Seyn." I read this and thought of Gelassenheit. Back to section 41 (GA 65) Heidegger again is critical of the whole concept of animal rationale. Needless to say, this is a recurring theme with Heidegger. Man is the animal with reason thrown in for good measure – Heidegger is contra this is in a big way. (Even starting on the first page of the whole text). Instead Heidegger is showing us man as Da-Sein, man as fundamentally defined as Man as in the opening of Being. This is not man as the rational animal, and oh by the way, also open to Being; but rather, as Being as the opening that is man. (Of course, women too). This is the "transformation of man himself ". To: Reading Group. Remarks on Sections 56-60 of Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939). Gesamtausgabe volume 65. These are hard sections because so much is loaded into the text by Heidegger. Section 55 Echo. Our distressfulness (Notlosigkeit) is pushing toward the forgotteness of Being (Seinsvergessenheit). Why is this an echo? Sound metaphors are being used by Heidegger to avoid perception and visual images. Do you smell something funny here? What do you hear about Being? We jump to beings and things, but all of the times forget what is it that makes up the whole process -the Being of beings. Die Seinsverlassenheit ist der Grund der Seinsvergessenheit. Can we say that we need to make beings at home with being; we need to let beings Be through Being? A harmony that is lacking between beings and Being. Poor Being – forgotten and abandoned; and no one noticed (lack of distress over this situation). I know this does not sound like 172 Heidegger. Can we "say" what Heidegger is up to without re-saying Heidegger in Heideggerian speaks? Heidegger summarize at the end of 55 with the remark: Der Anklang des Seyns will das Seyn in seiner vollen Wesung als Ereignis durch die Enthüllung der Seinsverlassenheit zurückholen, was nur so geschieht, dass das Seiende durch die Gründung des Da-seins in das im Sprung eröffnete Seyn zurückgestellt wird. And I think the key expression here is the Gründung des Da-seins (grounding of Da-sein). This allows for the leap to a new beginning or at least that is one place for us to leap to...a new beginning (which includes a lot). Section 56. Some of the next section goes over the Introduction in "Being and Time" again – Being as forgotten, general, familiar, empty, etc. But and now come the 16 points about the Seinsverlassenheit (abandonment of Being) announces itself. This needs more than a few remarks to go into detail, but I find these 16 points to be one of the fascinating parts of the whole text. This is a list of the philosophical issues that Heidegger wants to say are in some sense "bad". Some sounds like cultural issues, some personal, I think the one #15 is a little over board, "darkening of the world and the destruction of the earth". Sounds like "apocalyptic language ... the cosmic drama, the mystical metaphors, the Teutonic bombast" (Sheehan 2001). This would be on the one hand, whereas reading Heidegger carefully requires a more thoughtful approach. Number 10 speaks to me more than the others: „10.Alle Ruhe und Verhaltenheit erscheint als Untätigkeit und Gehenlassen und Verzicht und ist vielleicht der weiteste Überschwung zurück in das Seinlassen des Seins als Ereignis." I think the Seinlassen and Gehenlassen speaks to the notion of Gelassenheit, but my German is on thin ice here. And I am not sure when Heidegger started to stress this notion (not sure even what to called it – expression). Section 57 leads into 58 and three concealments of the abandonment, which in fact leads to six. The extra three are thrown in for free. Well in fact, the first three lead to the fourth. But the 5 and 6 are added. Heidegger makes a clear summarizing point in section 5. "Zeitalters der gänzlichen Fraglosigkeit aller Dinge und aller Machenschaften." The lack of questioning leads again to section 59 with a similar title. Section 60 some people have called this a constant refrain through the entire text. "die Notlosigkeit als die höchste Not" since Heidegger sees no distress over these issues, this then becomes his highest or utmost distress. NO ONE IS WORRIED ABOUT the abandonment of the Being of beings and Da-sein ground has been lost. Nietzsche said something that comes to mind: "Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? And backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying as through 173 an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? "(1882 Die fröhliche Wissenschaft: ("la gaya scienza" Book three, section 125). I am not sure this has helped bring about a better reading of these sections, but the Beiträge is a difficult text to get our hands, eyes, ears, and our nose; and to get a sense of where Heidegger is leading us. Martin Heidegger's Contributions to philosophy (from enowning) (1936-1939) Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) Remarks on sections GA 65, 61-67. Following Timothy Bagley remarks. When I read this perhaps I wanted the seas to be more open and clear for our sailing forth. Heidegger is developing his concepts here and making us come to clearer understanding of Machenschaft and Erlebnis. How are we as philosophers to proceed with "concepts"? (begriff, inbegriff, Begrifflichkeit, Inbegrifflichkeit) What are we really doing with our concepts? Do we want to make them: riper, clearer, stronger, deeper, more complete, under or over determined them? Nietzsche said in 1885 (Will to Power, #409), "What dawns on philosophers last of all: they must no longer accept concepts as gifts, nor merely purify and polish them, but first make and create them, present them and make them convincing." Or, "Even the palest of the pale were able to master him-our honorable metaphysicians, those concept-albinos. They spun their webs around him until, hypnotized by their motions, he himself became a spider, another metaphysician." Twilight of the Idols. For Nietzsche concepts are just gifts from on high from the old times and of course most of them are the metaphysical concepts – which are no good. Nothing is given for us without re-thinking the concepts. Re-thinking, re-working, or re-transformed as it were. Non-historical concepts are gone. Heidegger talks about Reinigung, section 110, subsection 26. "(What unfolds as "destruction" in Sein und Zeit does not mean dismantling as demolishing but as purifying..." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939), GA 65, German pp. 220-221). Reinigung= cleaning, Nettoyage? Earlier Heidegger said, "These three basic components of phenomenological method reduction , construction, destruction belong together in their content and must receive grounding in their mutual pertinence. Construction in philosophy is necessarily destruction, that is to say, a de-constructing of traditional concepts carried out in a 174 historical recursion to the tradition. And this not a negation of the tradition or a condemnation of it as worthless; quite the reverse, it signifies precisely a positive appropriation of tradition." (Summer Semester 1927 Basic Problems in Phenomenology, E.T. p.23). (Perhaps, Hegel's aufgehoben comes to mind). Heidegger asks the question and answers it: „Was meint Machenschaft? Das in die eigene Fesselung Losgelassene. Welche Fesseln? Das Schema der durchgängigen berechenbaren Erklärbarkeit, wodurch jegliches mit jedem gleichmässig zusammenrückt und sich vollends fremd, ja ganz anders als noch fremd wird. Der Bezug der Unbezüglichkeit." (GA 65, #67). The last part in English is „The relation of non-relationality". What is relationality, and hence what is non-relationality? About Machination and Lived-Experience, Heidegger said: „The strength for preserving and sheltering is farthest from them" (Section 66). The important point to all of this is not to try to conceive of these remarks from an ontic thinking, but rather, ontological. The difficult speaks. (See also section number 2 in GA 65, #18). In on of the interviews Heidegger says he is not against technology per se, it is rather a question of understanding where technology comes from and in a sense there is "more" than just technology. I think the "more" is the question for Heidegger. Man was defined as "animal rationale" but now this has to be transformed to Da-Sein. One of Tim's points is that Heidegger is short on "solutions". I always think of the fly in the bottle example. This is where philosophers paint us into the corner or being a fly in the bottle with seemingly no way until we decide on following them out. They give us the "solution". Kant's critical path alone is open. Kant said, "The critical path alone is still open. If the reader has had the courtesy and patience to accompany me along this path, he may now judge for himself whether, if he cares to lend his aid in making this path into a high-road, it may not be possible to achieve before the end of the present century what many centuries have not been able to accomplish; namely, to secure for human reason complete satisfaction in regard to that with which it has all along so eagerly occupied itself, though hitherto in vain." (very end of CPR). The question for understanding Nietzsche is that there are few nuggets in Nietzsche's published writings that give us a "solution" after pages of critical remarks about every – ism and every one under the sun, and then Nietzsche gives us a few crumbs. Heidegger also does not give us many "solutions". One of my favorite quotes from Heidegger which is "I write all of this in the form of questions; for, as far as I can see, thinking can today do more than to continually ponder what evoked in the said questions." (On The Question of Being, Letter to Ernst Jünger, "Zur Seinsfrage (1955) / Über die Linie" in GA 9 Pathmarks et. p.306). ("Ich schreibe dies alles in der Form von Fragen; denn mehr vermag heute, soweit ich sehe, ein Denken nicht, als unablässig eig das zu bedenken, was die angeführten Fragen hervorruft."). The questioning nature of philosophy, it is only "what if". The seeking itself is the goal. 175 "The grandeur of man is measured according to what he seeks and according to the urgency by which he remains a seeker (Suchende)." (Grundfragen der Philosophie. Ausgewählte 'Probleme' der 'Logik', GA 45 g. p. 5, et. p.7). Perhaps we can say that Machenschaft stands in our way. End of remarks about the text GA 65. Question: how much sense does this make without you reading the text first? I think this is a general question when reading any philosophical thinking "about" some text. Otherwise, you need setup the context as much as possible. I have tried to do with in some of my work with quoting Heidegger with both the English and the German; and engaging Heidegger sometimes in a free fore all and sometimes just re-thinking through what Heidegger has thought. How can we give the context for some aphorisms – all of life can be included. 97 Nietzsche said, remarked, thought, wrote down, and it was translated into English and comes to us as "Fundamental principle: in the entire history of mankind until now no purpose, no secret rational leading, no instinct, but rather accident, accident, accident- and some beneficial ones." (KGW V-1 p. 349). You see mankind is not the goal, and has no goal. At one point, Nietzsche even says that mankind does not even exist. Beside mankind the only goal is to lead us to the overman. 98 Nietzsche said, remarked, thought, wrote down, and it was translated into English and comes to us as " When I speak of Plato, Pascal, Spinoza, and Goethe, then I know that their blood rolls in mine-I am proud, if I tell the truth about them-that this family is well enough that it has nothing to hold in or to conceal; and in such a way I have always been proud of its humanity, and proud especially of its absolute truthfulness." Notebooks: Summer 1882 21 [2]. Although he would not like the thought, Nietzsche should have included Kant in this group as least on the scale of telling the truth and honesty. Of course, we can wonder about the truthfulness of what was done to the thought of Plato, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. 99 Nietzsche said, remarked, thought, wrote down, and it was translated into English and comes to us as "One forgets, to give an example, how European culture hitherto and our recent culture itself approaches a state of philosophical disintegration [Mürbigkeit], out of which the emergence of a Buddhism becomes understandable." Notebooks: November 1887-March 1888 11 [413]. Heidegger talks about the opposite of Buddhism (GA 176 section 83). For Nietzsche it seems like Buddhism is a late form of nihilism and shows the lack of will and spirit. When we can no longer give birth to a new god or even thought of dancing god – with fatalism, Buddhism becomes the last gasp of earthly breath. 100 Nietzsche said, remarked, thought, wrote down, and it was translated into English and comes to us as "We believe in reason: it is however the philosophy of gray concepts, language is built upon the most naive prejudices ... Rational thought is an interpretation according to a scheme that we cannot throw off." (KGW VIII-1 p. 197, KSA XII p. 193f). For Nietzsche reason is an interesting process of thinking, which is linked to all of our thoughts just being an interpretation and not based on hard data or hard thinking. Language is thought through the process of grammar. Language for Heidegger is the house of Being (Seyn) with lots of open doors and let in the wind and let our pathways into the house be seen on clear blue sky day. 101 Is Heidegger notion of Being (Sein, Seyn) singular or plural? Can we say Being(s) without using the expression "Beings" to mean things or beings? Our singularity can be changed into a transhumanity or posthumans without metaphysical grammar behind the veil of our language. Can we speak of the The Dyson Scenario now? Irregular grammar for Being, so that is neither singular or plural or connected to just the grammar of the word, which we use the expression "Being" to mean more than what fits into grammatical construction. 102 Nietzsche said, remarked, thought, wrote down, and it was translated into English and comes to us as "After the vision of the overman, in a gruesome way the doctrine of the recurrence: now bearable! (MGW, XIV, 110). You see we need the vision of the overman and how it must now feel to hear the word of the eternal return of the same, some how goes from gruesome to bearable for us mere humans. Can we handle the tension and the awful dread in the air as we now hear without our third ear the dreadful truth of being human? Existentialism must be heard in some form, but can we handle it and still be able to bound in the air with the joyful science – yes, of course. Nietzsche said, "Thereupon Zarathustra related, out of the joy of the übermensch, the secret that all recurs." (MGW, XIV, 180). The übermensch is the overman. Therefore, we now know the whole story of the real joy of secret that Nietzsche has finally taught us. 103 177 Nietzsche said, "Well then! Such men alone are my readers, my right readers, my predestined readers: what matter the rest? The rest-that is merely mankind. One must be above mankind in strength..." (The Antichrist: Revaluation of All Values or later changed to Curse Upon Christianity. Written 1888-Published 1894). Who does Nietzsche really think was going to read his books? Only for a few of those who were destined to read his books and to be ready to read just his books. 104 Kant said, "There are scholarly men, to whom the history of philosophy (both ancient and modern) is philosophy itself; for these the present Prolegomena are not written. They just wait till those who endeavor to draw from the fountain of reason itself have completed their work; it will then be the historian's turn to inform the world of what has been done. Unfortunately, nothing can be said, which in their opinion has not been said before, and truly the same prophecy applies to all future time; for since the human reason has for many centuries speculated upon innumerable objects in various ways, it is hardly to be expected that we should not be able to discover analogies for every new idea among the old sayings of past ages." (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783). With this Kant philosophical methodology comes forth. Skip the past and dig into reason. Kant understood history and historical thought, but he was unable to keep this in forefront and make the turn toward historical thinking and a true philosophy of history that was part of his three critiques. We had to wait for Hegel to dictate that whole notion to philosophy, but it was Nietzsche who knew it from beginning to the end of his philosophy. Can we find places where Nietzsche did not tow the line – yes, but he knew philosophers and their errors. 105 Being is breathing in the openness that becomes unhidden by the truth. 106 Ontology is some mixed between henology and the manyness. What is Greek for the manyness of existence? 107 Are we known or unknown to ourselves? Answer: re-think the question. 108 Oh – how fortunate we are to know many things we do not need know and only a few things that we really need to know. These important things are.... 109 178 Is the word "good" too big a concept for us thinkers? Can we handle the whole of the conceptual world like the concept of "good"? Answer: tough question. 110 Are Heidegger and Nietzsche really inhuman or superhuman compared to the lesser group? 111 Can we ever have a tabula rasa (clean slate) for philosophy or even thought in general? Answer: no, we are embedded in history. What does nitimur in vetitum really mean for us thinkers? 112 The hidden history of philosophy is still hidden, since we all know that it was done for theology. Let me speak as a theologian for a moment. Ok, that does not work now. 113 Seek for yourself – do not let these words confused you. 114 I am the thinker par excellence, for this is my goal, so much for scholars. To speak Latin, I am as summa summarum a thinker– really. 115 I have one foot in life and no feet in the great beyond. 116 Can I speak metaphorically for a change? Ok, it is not a change, I have been speaking metaphorically, since you open this text and begin to read. Is that ok with you? Please delete the previous text. Or, at least you can re-read it the whole aphorism. 117 Why do we need any kind of fatalism at all? Stand-up and take it – please. 118 179 Are you waiting for other people to rate this book highly? Do you want the review to say that this book was worth reading? Why wait? 119 Perhaps I am too questionable. Perhaps you ask too many questions and all you wanted was answers to the "what if" of life. Keep waiting, your time has not yet come for me. 120 Being is sui generis – now that is the truth. Are you waiting for the imprimatur? 121 How can we have love of fate without either love or fate? Read: amor fati as the final hope for Nietzsche (think positively). What can we be with or without our love and our fate on earth? Tricky question that can not be answer for all, perhaps only a few will ever know the question. 122 Paper work – well we should all suffer more and let it all happen. 123 I am enjoying the feast of thinking – you should too. 123 Ok, just checking to see if you are reading the numbers. 124 Deep ecology sounds like depth psychology, nothing from nothing equals something is that the right logic. In other words, deep ecology is about man's relationship to the meaning of the earth without the eternal ideas and values; and without the foundation of rationality. Ecology is really man's relationship to the world without religion and metaphysics – in this new age. 125 180 We know, therefore we are. 126 Nature is not transparent to itself. 127 Words are the cloths of Being. Language is the house/home of Being without metaphysical doors and perhaps without Kant's foundations as the basement. 128 Time moves forward and never backward, but what about a movement to the side. Time moves sideway and fills up all of the space of experience. 129 Kant, Schelling, and Hegel were the last group of philosophers, who all assumed God as given. Although they wrote about proofs for the Dasein of God, nevertheless, in actuality their systems assumed God without reservations. Just like we assume metaphysics to be a bad thing there we need to remove – if we can. 130 Can food be a metaphor for Being? 131 If the house of Being is language and that means Being is no longer singular (that there are multiple doors), then the meaning of Being, the truth of Being, the essential sway of Being, and the typology of Being is wrapped up with language. Is the typology of Being (Sein, Seyn) based on function? Answer: no, I do not think so. 132 "It gives" is too ontic of a metaphor for Heidegger. Self-consciousness is too subjective. Worldview is too much psychology. All modern metaphysics has that itch of being way too anthropomorphic – for us. The itch is only skin deep. Underneath metaphysics is our need to go back behind or to have that one step in the beyond of something. Science fiction is most likely our need to create something more than our meaning of the earth. 133 181 Truthfulness is the abstraction of a process. How can truth be a process? Or, how can truth not be a process? 134 Truth is not a circle or triangle. Can we have truth without reason? Answer: yes, I think so. 135 Please re-read Aristotle's Physics IV for the concept of time. 136 Is inapparent the same meaning as hidden? Phenomenology rightly understood is only after hidden phenomenon. Unconcealmentness-ing, I think had the right meaning. 137 Can we say that entelecheia is an accomplished reality? Answer: no, it has more the sense of power within. Does to kata tas ptoseis on lead to ousia and symbebekota? Answer: yes. Roughly translated this means: Being according to the categories leads to substance and accidents. 138 How can our destiny talk to us? Can we no longer read the signs and the whole sense of which direction should we go is lost? 139 Are you known or un-known to ourselves? How much do understand of our own nature? Man has a problem. No goal, no answer, no final anything. Telos is at no end. 140 Overthrowing the truth and metaphysics – that for me would be a good day. We have lost the truth, now we must lose metaphysics. Goodbye. 141 The hidden history of mankind is that we are unknown to ourselves and we shall remain so with or without Heidegger and Nietzsche. 142 182 Even with all that is no longer forbidden to us, we still know so little. 143 If you keep looking for me and read my truths, then how will you find your selves? Are you learning anything from me or is this an image of you? First find yourselves – only then can you return to me and enjoy all things afresh again. 144 Are we going up or are we going down? Look around and do not ask these questions again. 145 Behind the shadow of God is still the meaning of the earth, so look for the meaning of the earth or planet within you and in the world as well. 146 Just remember you have one foot in beyond, one foot here, and one foot there – now you are talking about having a few extra feet just for fun. 147 Nietzsche talked about being 6000 feet above Bayreuth – he should get on plane and he could have seen what life looks like at 30,000 feet above it all. 148 Should we speak metaphorically again, ok everything you read is a metaphor. Just in case you missed it, here it is again -ok everything you read is a metaphor. 149 Fatalism is both the will to no longer react and the will to understand that reacting is no longer needed. 150 Heidegger has given us one step to question Being, but in fact, everything – everywhere is way too questionable for even Heidegger. Open up the question and see all of the questions that those questions presuppose and it that box there are even more questions waiting in your face to get those questions. This is the kind of fatalism of too many questions, which take up too much mind-space. Can you handle it? Gnôthi seauton (know your self). 183 151 Is Being sui generis or not? Yes, I think so. 152 My formula for philosophy is two cups honey and then a little a beer for good measure. Ok, what were you expecting me to say, what did you hear in your head? You are just drunk with too many riddles. In which direction are you seeking me or yourselves? Think about it again. 153 Can you still deduce the truth related to philosophy? How would you even go about doing that? Yes, I think you have a problem. 154 Joyous cosmology of life and the worm in us is still in the earth and mud. How much of us is still worm in the mud? Our antipodically nature is contra to the great Hegel. Just say "yes" unconditionally to the opposition of all that is before and after us. Can I say one word now – terror. 155 Now that we can speak like crypto-priests and the crypto-philosophers – what do we really want to say to everyone? Listen with your third ear and sense the sound approaching from afar. 156 Nietzsche wants to a revaluation of all values – well, I say with Heidegger trash all of the previous value metaphysics (period). 157 Are there higher mountains to climb – let us climb them now. 158 What is really modern? Should we not offer our own critique of all things of modernity? Answer: no, I think that it has no ground and no foundation. 159 184 If Marx stood Hegel on his head, and Nietzsche stood Platonism and Metaphysics on its head, then Heidegger never stood on his head; but rather, he developed the nature of philosophy as interrogative. 160 Are we finished with the old truths or are they going to come back again and again? No, I think old truths are on their way out. So long!! 161 I am sorry if these aphorisms and this so call "book" is not deep enough for you, but perhaps you need to go to your own depths first. 162 Can we know our fate? I still want to ponder this for a time. 163 We have seen world-historical politics, but so far no world-historical philosophy has appeared. 164 Should philosophers be annihilators par excellence or should they create a new vision of the earth? Speak of the Utopia. 165 Should I be shorter and brief for you? Perhaps you would like to read some "silence" again. Listen up. 166 Spinoza speaks of amor intellectualis dei (intellectual love of God). Should we speak of the real love of fate on earth? How about practical love of God – does that sound better to you? 167 Can speak of our culture as having symptomatological characteristics? We have so much of our symptoms to tell each other. 168 185 Who is responsible for mankind being here on the planet? No one. Who knows the purpose? No one. The why and goal is lacking. In short, to speak the truth – lost in the wilderness again. 169 Can we say there is not now nor has there been a really world class philosopher that lived in America? Why is that? Is it a matter of culture or something more subtle? We know our dangers? Do we have enough culture and history for a philosopher to be born? 170 Can we speak unphilosophical for a moment? Under what rock can we find the truth? Philosopher as rock hound. The history of philosophy in America has not yet been written, perhaps it too early or just too late (what practical use is philosophy?). Historians have no philosophy; they lack all of the necessary ingredients for the recipe. 171 Raphael idealized the philosophers. Did he get right? 172 What would anti-Heidegger mean for Heideggerians? Base on his life or based on his philosophy. Should we all be inside as anti-Heideggerians looking for our differences with Heidegger? 173 What is the highest philosopher for American's service industry worker? This shows the problem right off of the bat. Kant thought the thing-in-itself would save the civil servant. 174 To put it metaphorically: means to put it at all. The good is known to all mankind. 175 Has there been a master of the aphorisms yet? What is the methodology used for, since for philosophy there are only paths. 176 Consequently Wittgenstein did not understand the Greeks and perhaps very few Germans for that matter. Wittgenstein was born posthumously, and then he died as well. What 186 culture produced Wittgenstein and what are the pre-conditions for this lost of history? Even Hegel "had" history at some level. 177 What matters that we have no courage for the forbidden and no ability for riddles? We are dead in the water without a paddle or direction, lost on an open sea. 178 How much solitude is required to produce one philosopher? Is it just numbers? 179 Can we be above mankind? Certainly, not beyond mankind metaphysically if that is what you were thinking. A few philosophers are all that we need. Our factum, our final truth – is still missing from our world. There is no end, no telos, and no final end to anything. Why would you want and will a final end to anything? The story of mankind's history has no end. Read a book without an end and you will get the idea. The will to an end is some kind of nihilistic will, since we are without goals and purposes. 180 My formula for philosophy: is to actively engage in philosophizing with historical figures as a new way of seeing. In other words, read between the lines and all over the margins. Produce your own marginalia of direct contact with philosophers. Can our marginalia grow into a systematic philosophy? Silly question, now step back and laugh at your self for a minute. 181 How can philosophers have presuppositions they are just grammar. Can we avoid presuppositions? Answer: no. We need to try and always be in the process of the clarification of our presuppositions. Backward thinking in this case is good. 182 Why no new gods? The will, the power, and the spirit are all gone. Now all we have is the figure of the last god face is just a glimmer and the hint of something we know is missing. The last god may or may not return for Heidegger. All of these concepts of god have been denatured and lost. The spirit world is long gone for modern man. Perhaps the man of the future may yet find the last god who may save us. Man and god are matchless. 183 187 Where is the moral order to the world? What would we do if we found it? Answer: nothing. 184 Was Francis of Assisi to much of realist for the Church? Realism and religion – now there is a match. 185 Who is the greatest symbolist? The symbols of the church speak to many. 186 Hegel still wants us to provoke the contradiction. The system and the anit-system are in one location and place. Who should the philosopher provoke now? Those who are unfree? 187 What does our age, our period in history, our time – know with regard to itself? I think not much. Does this produce some nausea for you or are you left high and dry by yourself? 188 With the famous saying, "ego cogito, ergo sum" (Descartes) nothing was really said, since Protagoras said the same years before. Man is the measure of all things, man is in relationship to the Being of beings (all things too). Man is man and that is all there is to everything. Man! Nothing more need be said at this point. Overman will be the replacement. 189 Common sense is lost to the world of T.V. and the media. No practical reason to be involved in common sense, since everyone knows it. The counter punch to Hegel lead to positivism and even that position is above/beyond/behind common sense. But how can we even rank these worldviews, witch are in fact not even philosophy. 190 What is the fulfillment of philosophy and the end of philosophy as a subject matter for thought? Philosophy as a subject (not philosophy as philosophizing and thinking) is to be lost to the modern world. 191 188 Language is the on one hand, the words as lexical artifacts, but on the other hand (or tongue) produces communications between two or more people. Where is the meaning of words and language to be found? Any questions about language always remain interrogative for us as human beings involved with the riddle of language. How can we produce the non-contradiction about language as the house of Being? 192 Metaphysics must first be understood in its very nature, second it must be confronted, third it must be fulfilled, fourth it must be overcome, and then final if possible it must be put outside and behind our philosophical thinking. One case: metaphysics thinks Being as will. Metaphysics thought as metaphysica generalis as cosmology, theology, and ontology or ontotheological. Split between essentia and existentia with eternal ideas rebaked in the mix. The need for the first philosophy is wanting without a will. 193 Philology (wordology) needs to include the study of just reading and reading well. 194 Do we need to start studying unpractical reasons for doing things? Everything comes back to the survival of mankind or just our way of life. We do not need moral education for such things, since most already know it. We all have a built in sense for facts and truths in the moral order. 195 Philosophy has been trampled down by many feet, so there is a little left. 196 Can we still find a few honorable metaphysicians who are still spinning out those concept-albinos of Nietzsche's? Those conceptual webs of confusions – I confess to those needs as well. Grasping the conceptual is well known. Thinking these are absolute and eternal ideas – that is Hegel's story. 197 Nietzsche wants new values, whereas Heidegger stands outside of metaphysics and metaphysics of values. If the world has no value, then what? Valuelessness-ing seems strange, since values do not exist, then no process of losing them. If we lost God and we have lost morality, plus we now have lost values, then I repeat: what is left for us mere mortals on this earth? 198 189 Do you see the signs and the lost of spirit that is nihilisms? Ok, re-think or en-think or bethink it all again and see what is on the horizon of your thought. 199 How weary is weary nihilism that leads to Buddhism? Very! 200 All of life is joy with or without the opening that is the Being of beings. 201 Who was Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843)? Hegel first meet at Hölderlin at the Tübingen Protestant Seminary called the Stift in October 1788. In 1790, Hegel, F.J.W. Schelling, and Hölderlin are roommates. They are reading F.H. Jacobi's works and are in the web of the so called Pantheism Controversy. At the same time, they are reading the Greeks in this connection (Hen kai Pan). Schelling and Hölderlin are in a reading group about Kant, but Hegel does not join. Together they talked of the Kantian notion of the "invisible church". However, Hegel is already more distance from Kant than Hölderlin and Schelling. They shared a keen interest in the French Revolution 1789. Hölderlin in 1794 and 1795 attends classes by Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814). He talks to Hegel about Fichte. Hegel writes a poem (Eleusis) to Hölderlin in August 1796. During 1797, Hegel takes on Hofmeister in Frankfurt that Hölderlin had arranged for him and lives near Hölderlin. Hölderlin increasingly is doing more poetry and has published a novel (Hyperion). Hegel acts the middle man between Hölderlin and his beloved Susette Gontard. Hölderlin is working on translations of the Greeks. By 1798 Hölderlin has moved and by early 1801 Hegel moves to Jena to be close to Schelling and his first philosophical writings are published in the Critical Journal of Philosophy edited by Hegel and Schelling. Hegel helped get new editions of Hölderlin works published, and Hyperion in 1822 and poems in 1826. In the mean time, Hölderlin has a mental break down in 1807 and lives the next 36 years in a tower over looking the Neckar River near Tübingen. In March 1830, Hegel speaks of the glowing time of his youth and Hölderlin at a dinner party with the princess Marianne of Hessen-Homburg. Since that time Hölderlin has become even more famous as a poet and is connected to the philosophical world through Heidegger's elucidations of Hölderlin. These details about his life do not help us understand where Hölderlin stands in our future. For that issue you need to reread Heidegger and go ahead into the future. 202 Philosophy's essential nature is opera citato. 190 203 Besides being assiduous what else can we say about scholars? I think Nietzsche would have more to say about these "lost ones". 204 Can we ever exonerate any philosopher? Kant did and is doing more damage to philosophers, then Heidegger being silent on his one time attempt at the political. 205 Are university philosophy professors anything more than just simple proponents of philosophy? For sure, the lesser role in philosophy needs to be filled by someone. 206 Are we just aficionado of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger? We need to more than cheerleaders for philosophers. 207 Who still believes in joie de vivre? This is now an outdated notion of reality. 208 Have you decided to quit reading and thinking about philosophy, then nolo contendere to turning to clear truth about life. Things go better without philosophy. There is no doubt about that idea. What do you find that surprising? Think again. Oh, a non sequitur or just humor. Philosophy is something you can not make a decision about. The sine qua non of philosophy is to reject philosophy. You must question the base and foundation of all thinking, namely, the roots of philosophy. 209 Kant should be de rigueur for the first years of any philosophy student. 210 Extermination maybe the best one can do against terrorism. Absolute war maybe when there is only one side left standing. 211 Warfare is a complex interplay between applied engineering and human (individuals, groups, cultures, nations, groups of groups) engineering. 191 212 If ants engage in war, then can we say that ants have a will? War defined as a conflict of wills. F. Nietzsche talks of will to power. M. Heidegger's analysis points to the will to Will at the end of western metaphysics. In this case, the word 'will' is both a verb and with Heidegger the second part of the phrase the word 'Will' is a noun. How can we have the will to dominate others? Why not leave them alone? No, we can not do that. Our will drives us to another course of action. 213 Civilization based on peace would define certain values. These kinds of values might not lead to long term survival of humanity. Peace-values have the wrong rank. I. Kant wrote an essay on Perpetual Peace in the late 1700s. This supposedly lead to the creation of the League of Nations (which Heidegger was against in the 1930s) and then on to the United Nations. However, think of the counterexample of Frank Herbert's Dune series. What is the tension between very long term peace and war? By some super management method and a long time from if there was control over all of the nations could we come up with long term peace – could the UN be a way of bring peace to the world. Instead of some ideal of peace on earth should we think of trying to reduce warfare and come up with a real objective – for example, less than a thousand people die per year in warfare. A systematic architectonics of concepts is a general problem of ancient Aristotelian problem in metaphysics. Kant had a solution. The One and the Many is an essential issue in Plato's dialogue Sophist, but the issue of metawar is more precisely determined as a regional ontology. N. Hartmann and E. Husserl took up this general problem in the early 20th century. The problem of henology of how the One become Many is not an issue here, but how to create a system for metawar needs to have the roots and foundation based in a regional ontology. How to do that? 214 War is the clash of worldviews. We want you to enjoin our worldview and do what we want you to do, namely, to bend to our will. We can kill you because you think slavery is way of the world. My worldview includes freedom of newspapers, but I will not kill you that. But if enough of your worldview is different than mine and you threaten me. If I sense danger, then I might at least damage you so you quit threatening me. 215 Why does war beget more war? Nations are in a kind of balance and during and after war then balance changes, once that balance is changed, then the new balance creates the opening for more conflict and war. The balance involves groups of Nations. Nations feel danger and are threaten. Hence, the possibility of war increases. 192 216 What are the essential parts to a worldview? How can worldviews be in conflict? There are links to values and ranks of those values. Civilizations have ranked values concretely in them. This is what is meant partial by our way of life. Civilizations decline and fall because of wars, but these also come apart by themselves. What dangers are apparent or hidden in our civilization? What can we do about them? How many dangers for us reside in other nations? These dangers are not simply that other nations would make war against us, but what materials they may have or had that can be used against us by terrorist. There are other kinds of dangers. Some of which we can not know at this point. Some things remain hidden for possible weapons in the future. 193 Aphorisms: Heidegger on Zarathustra 1 At the center of Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, A Book for Everyone and No One, is the figure Zarathustra. Heidegger asks the question: who is Nietzsche's Zarathustra? We can follow along with the questions: Who is Heidegger's Nietzsche? Who is Zarathustra for Heidegger? Both of these questions will become more apparent during our critical dialogue with Heidegger. 2 Is Heidegger's Being of Time a book for everyone and no one? Heidegger was pushed into publishing his work ahead of time, but who was the book really written for...? Heidegger dedicated it to Edmund Husserl. In the context, he discussed the third unpublished division with Karl Jaspers and decided it was not yet ready. Heidegger wrote the book for philosophers, perhaps specifically for phenomenologists. Heidegger seems to be upset with the "idle curious" who get intoxicated with a particular aphorisms. He juxtaposes this approach with what appears to be Heidegger's own method which is "proceeding along the path of thought that here seeks its expression" ("Who is Nietzsche's Zarathustra," second paragraph). Of course, Nietzsche himself used both the aphorism method and poetry. Nietzsche also gave us an example of unpacking aphorisms in the Genealogy of Morals. Aphorisms can point toward the path of thought, perhaps better than a novel format like Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The novel format may have confused people more than it helped. Why did Nietzsche decided to use the novel format as a methodology of doing philosophy and communicating with us? What is the philosophical methodology, the path of thought that Nietzsche decided to use in Thus Spoke Zarathustra? Heidegger has written dialogues, but so far nothing that Heidegger has written would be what he calls an aphorism. Why only one novel from Nietzsche? Especially, since there are so many notebooks, but still no sketches for other novels, one has to wonder how the novel came to Nietzsche. What really happen there? 4 Can we find the philosophical truths without a method? Do we need an absolute method which is Hegel's main philosophical claim? The how pushes us toward a theory of knowledge that assumes too much. If the world is flat in appearance, then there is no depth. This means no "foundation" moves. Kant goes home. Nietzsche goes to the front of the classroom. Heidegger is still the teacher. Hegel remains the thinker. Hegel through Marx has made the largest impact. Perhaps Hegel's method is the closest we can come to 194 the world. Nietzsche's method is no-method (contra method); it is rather Nietzsche's content and his anti-metaphysical stance and even more critical is his anti-value system that has overturned past philosophical schools. Nietzsche's hammer hit the nail on the head and released the flood that has washed over the shores of western culture. Just think: a sick philology professor (who left the university for health reasons) from Switzerland turned everything upside down and western civilization is still attempting to recovery from his awesome hammer. 5 Nietzsche said in Will to Power # 419 (1885), "German philosophy as a whole – Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, to name the greatest." Who would we name as the greatest: Christian Wolff (1679-1754), Kant Hegel, Schelling, Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger? What happened to Fichte, Rudolph Hermann Lotze (1817-1881), Wilhelm Dilthey, or Husserl? British – only David Hume. India – Nagarjuna, Sankaracarya, and perhaps the great Panini. Also, China – only Lao Tsu and Chung-Tsu (Zhuangzi), and perhaps just a quick mention of the greatest infamous Confucius. Who of these philosophers are alive in the current flow of thought? Or are those some just dead dusty old books in libraries? Living thought. This is not a matter of scholarship but a dialogue with thinkers over the matter themselves. The greatest of only a few are the final measure of life on earth. 6 Heidegger has a balance between scholarship and philosophizing. What about Hegel and Nietzsche? Nietzsche certainly not – even with the philological background. 7 What does it mean: metaphysical concept of revenge? 8 Methodology – is this Heidegger or Nietzsche? There is no question about Hegel and Schelling. Kant tried to confuse the point, but he could not help himself. 9 Does Heidegger seek to be profound? My sense is that Heidegger was not interested in being profound – it does not seem to fit. Perhaps Nietzsche had some sense of being profound. Say something profound – a scholar or a philosopher or a thinker? 10 Nietzsche often tried to write very loud, but Heidegger's voice was always grounded. 195 11 Thinkers make things easier or more difficult, more complex, deeper, darker, more...? Or, do you want the simple version of a story (Hegel said that stories need a purpose and an end – hence, human history is driven by reason and purpose)? 12 Kant tried to make "room for faith." Nietzsche contra Kant. But what about Heidegger? Heidegger is contra simple reason as the defining characteristics of humanity and faith is for theology. Was there room for faith in Heidegger's world? 13 Can you hear questions that have no answers? Why do we have the interrogative? Who? When? How? Why? What? The questions are questionable. Ok, what are the questions? What you seek only answers – rather seek only questions. Seek your self and perhaps you will find only the very act of seeking and questioning. 14 Turenne knew what fearlessness meant. Maybe too much exuberance which is overcoming all of our fear or should we say "fearlessnessing" as the primary mode of being in our world – who has the power for this? 15 Do ad hominem arguments really work? Why do we hear them so much? When it came to publishing his lectures Heidegger often took them out before he published them. Why do we want to put them back in his writings – why do we enjoy his remarks so much? Right on – since his aim always hit the mark. Keep them in the ten-ring. 16 Nietzsche was contra all apart, beyond, outside, trans, above, and meta. How did this stand with Heidegger? 17 Sebastien Roch Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) was read and deeply understood by Nietzsche, but if he was read by Heidegger – no influence. Aphorisms are perhaps the greatest philosophical methodology possible – why is it that others do not see the light and the truth of this fundament thought. Why is the essay or a book the best possible way to do philosophy? What is a collection of aphorisms – can we speak of philosophical work? What is the nature of philosophy that it can be expressed as aphorisms, essays, articles, poems, and books? Can we do philosophy without a structural argument? 196 Answer: yes, that is part of the nature of aphorisms. Even Ludwig Wittgenstein (18891951) understood this in his Philosophical Investigations. Is this perspectivism or just plain old realism or does this really mean relativism? How are there isolated fragments in the middle of Thus Spoke Zarathustra? Nietzsche methodology is obviously not Heidegger's methodology. How does Heidegger's methodology stayed within the Hermeneutic tradition? Somewhere in the 1930s Heidegger has left this behind. 18 Through the figure and image of Zarathustra, Nietzsche has a voice as an advocate. What does Heidegger advocate? The questioning of the relationship (the opening) between Dasein (human being) and the Being of beings in a non-metaphysical way. He also points the distress over the loss of the Being of beings. Heidegger points us toward a decision. Plus, Heidegger is not against technology but wants us to strive toward a deeper understanding of technology and its place for humans. Humans for Heidegger are more than the rational animal. Thinking is more than just reason. Nietzsche's thinking is more than just reason – in fact, Nietzsche has a strong counter push to simple minded rationality. This is not the typical understanding of irrationalism that the French got caught up in and then formally rejected. Heidegger shows us pathways through the forest and woods of philosophy. He is a teacher and a guide, but he is not looking for disciples (even his close students were confused on this point). 19 Nietzsche is the advocate for: overman will power eternal return of the same life suffering circle of time meaning of the earth become who you are amor fati Dionysos innocence of becoming wants to give birth to a dancing star revaluation of all values. Which of these can we take up with passion as our own? Some of these will lead us beyond the last western metaphysician – beyond Nietzsche's entanglement with metaphysics. Heidegger's encounter with Nietzsche often pushes him back into metaphysics, but on some rare occasions Heidegger points toward Nietzsche as a transition point. I think the meaning of the earth as the true world become the history of an error and just simply a fable will lead us out of the dark water of metaphysics to an 197 open sea. Why was Zarathustra in the mountains and not on the sea? Those open seas afford Nietzsche to see even farther than on the peaks of mountains. There has never been such open sea for the non-metaphysics made since the time of Kant. Answer: we are trying to kill if off our openness to the open sea of life. The lament for metaphysics has yet to begin, but it is coming toward us. 20 We can shred every metaphysical book on the planet and still metaphysics will be with us for our historical epoch. 21 Why would Nietzsche use the concept of "eternal" in the eternal return of the same? The use of "eternal" seems to stand against everything else in Nietzsche's thinking. 22 Why does Nietzsche speak of "whispering of eternal things"? (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, section "On the Vision and the Riddle"). The riddle will be found on unexplored seas, since we cannot yet know the riddles within riddles. The alpha and omega of our own Da-sein is this riddle within riddles. Heidegger is un-riddling the riddle, but even he can not see all the mountain peaks. But do we see all of the peaks? Those 14 – 8000 meter peaks have called to humans – climb me. 23 How does Heidegger transform the whole image of Nietzsche's Zarathustra so that we might see the true nature of humanity? After reading more of Heidegger, he seem more interested in Da-sein. How has Heidegger transformed Nietzsche's vision of humanity to his own? You want the short answer: he has not taken over Nietzsche. Heidegger is Heidegger – is this clear? It is becoming clear to me as least – looking endless for who influenced Heidegger (Lask, Fichte, Husserl, Eastern thought, Hegel, Kant, Schelling, and Nietzsche) is a deadend project. All of these philosophers influenced Heidegger that is not the point. Did they greatly influence him? No – not really. Everything he read and talked with people about was transformed by Heidegger to be Heidegger. Remember what Heidegger said about Hegel, "...to place Hegel's system in the commanding view and then to think in a totally opposite direction". (Beiträge zur Philosophie. (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) English translation: Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) GA 65, p.176. „Hegels Systematik in den beherrschenden Blick bringen und doch ganz entgegengesetzt denken." So, Hegel's influenced on Heidegger is going in the opposite direction. 24 In today's world it is hard to really remember the reality of teacher. A teacher is an employee of the school district or an employee of a university system – somehow the 198 concept of "teacher" like Zarathustra has been lost to us. Heidegger tried to maintain a balance between being a university professor as a teacher and his own philosophical development as he wrote in his monographs (note: not a book or "werke'). If Zarathustra was a teacher then where are his students? Where is the classroom? Zarathustra spoke to the people. Even though Zarathustra was a teacher, he still needed to go down and under. Nietzsche and Heidegger both are trying to express the concept of teacher and more closely to their intent – a guide for the summit team and mountaineering expedition. We need to fix new kernmantle rope so that we may go higher and higher. 25 Why didn't Nietzsche just write an essay about the overman? Why did he use the methodology of a novel to show us the teacher of Zarathustra? Nietzsche wanted to show the way with images. 199 Aphorisms on Martin Heidegger's Nietzsche Encounter 1 Nihilism is not a cultural phenomenon. Nihilism must be thought historically, it belongs to a "higher history". Although the origin of nihilism is unknown, it still speaks to modern man, that is, to us. 2 Incomplete nihilism is an attempt to have new ideals and ideas in the realm of the suprasensuous. Nietzsche said, "Two thousand years and not a single new god" is nihilism the lack of creative will or a weak will to power, which is part of the weakness of incomplete nihilism? The need is a loneliness which goes unfulfilled. 3 Complete nihilism is when the realm of the suprasensuous is gone. The eternal realm is without life. This is also classical nihilism. 4 What is the essence of nihilism? Nietzsche's solution to nihilism is the revaluing of the highest values, but this is not the suprasensuous realm. Not as eternal values. The earth speaks. Who does the revaluation process? Points toward nature of man. 5 What is the value of values? The essence of values cannot be found within a conceptual system. Are there lower and higher values that are other than the eternal values? The highest of all values was God, but then Nietzsche entered into the fray. 6 Are we continually caught in the contextual world of values? Answer: judgments. How can we be judgment free? Ideals are the principles of all judgments. 7 Can we have eternal goals and ideals that go beyond this worldly life? No. Nothing more. Or, is there more here? Where is here? And what could there be "more" of? 200 8 Does meaning come from our worldly life or is it only given from beyond (above, meta-) life –something external? Yes and no. Ok, it is neither subjective nor objective. Guess again. 9 The metaphysical world is divided between sensory and supersensuous (trans-sensory, metasensory) or is it just the sensory and the nonsenory (noeton). Why would metaphysics live in this distinction? Of course there is more than the sensory world – how else would you explain paper money (as just an idea). 10 The essence of nihilism and the essence of metaphysics can not be found inside philosophy books. Eternal and absolute values are lost or were they ever on earth? How can you find answers in dusty books? 11 The purpose of life goes with the "why" of life. A question without an answer, which is formulated within a non-metaphysical questioning. Can there be a 'reason' given here? A 'why' asks for reasons and the ground for those reasons. So, no 'whys' and no 'reasons'? What are the grounds? 12 Who will tell us when Nietzsche no longer prevails in the world? A philosopher? I think not. 13 Another metaphysical distinction between the real world and the ideal world. The ideal would be another loss. Worlds are worlding. This is a real process embedded in our worldly experience. 14 Nihilism is metaphysics in action. Metaphysics makes nihilism happen and more. 15 Transvaluation of all values or the revaluation of all values all speak to the valuelessness and the meaninglessness within those living in a real world. 201 16 A system of values is still a system and is still a will to valuing. 17 Nihilism as a countermovement to incomplete nihilism. Active incomplete nihilism is the worst movement. Are these just theories? 18 Human pessimism is like Russian fatalism. Nietzsche said in Ecce Homo, "Against it the invalid has only one great remedy-I call it Russian fatalism, that fatalism without revolt with which the Russian soldier, when a campaign becomes too strenuous, finally lies down in the snow. No longer to accept anything at all, to take anything, to take anything in-to cease reacting altogether." (Ecce Homo, "Why I Am So Wise" #section 6). 19 Human civilization "progresses" as concept-mummies, as an empty fiction. There is no "progress" or "improvers" of humanity. Nietzsche even denies humanity. 20 God as merely a value – even as the highest value (summum ens qua summum bonum). How low is God as a mere value? Nietzsche's critique as some kind of radically theology. Could it be that Nietzsche is a theologian? The issues are the same, but is Nietzsche trying to purify the relationship between man and God (or gods). Could these be Greek gods? Note the relationship with Dionysus. 21 Heidegger unfolds the presuppositions of Nietzsche's nihilism like peeling an onion. Slowly with human tears. Heidegger makes Nietzsche alive again. What is living and what is dead in Nietzsche's thought can be made clear by a living debate – not scholarship and re-reading the text. 22 Metaphysical Being is alive – otherwise no spirit. Becoming marks the nature of the world. The world is in flux. All within the One – Henology. 23 We live in a value-posting rich environment. It bubbles forth continuingly. 202 24 A will that wills less or willinglessness that finds no will to want. Some Indians tried this. A few contra examples make more than the rule or the principle. A will to more... 25 The metaphysical Being is the "whole" of the objective and subjective world all together. 26 Will to power means will to value-positing process. The transvaluation of all values or just the revaluation of all values. No more values – what is the value of that? 27 Fundamentalness means a system of foundations. Can we have foundations in a nonmetaphysical world? Perhaps not. Perhaps all foundational thought presupposes a metaphysical system. What does it mean to be fundamental? A prior or should we say a priornessing? Foundations make sense in building, but perhaps not in philosophy since there are no tops or bottoms in philosophy. 28 Truth is on one side of the certain agreement between a judgment and the object, but on the other side what are the presuppositions at work in this process? Nature of truth is beyond the correspondence theory of truth. 29 Everywhere is will as the Will willing. 30 What is Nietzsche's intent to raise the question of values? What is the value of the question? Perhaps Nietzsche has lost the value of life. 31 The horizon within which non-metaphysical thinking can take place must move beyond Nietzsche. 32 If there are no ideals and norms or values that were once "thought" to be in the realm of the supersensuous, then following Kant must be the moral order must be found within? 203 This is a question mark that must not be proven empirically. Relative ideals – what would that mean for us? The whole thought of eternal ideals has a smell of rotten eggs. 33 Who are those who do not believe in God in Nietzsche's madman story? Where are Ludwig Feuerbach (18041872), Karl Marx, and Friedrich Albert Lange (1828-1875, see his work The history of materialism and criticism of its present importance) in Nietzsche's philosophical thinking? Can you see that Nietzsche fits in with this crowd? 34 What is the pondering process? What has prepared the questioning of thinking? Only by paying heed to simplified of thinking. No seeking, therefore, no thinking; but the seeking must be without willing, without reasoning (ratio). 35 Rationalism and irrationalism are both within the spider's web of metaphysics. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Von Schelling (1775-1854) warned against us against of thinking of issues as merely –isms. We must either go above or below the whole philosophy-school perspective, we need a metaor transovercoming of all philosophy-school or a history of philosophical problems that approaches to the true nature of philosophy. One road was the 'back to the matter' approach with Phenomenology, but that only made it for awhile – when that ran out of air. What is philosophy if it is not –isms or schools? Start the dialogue on the radical tightening of the screws on what is not philosophy. Lots of this would be in philology. Take note. 36 What does power mean in the terms will to "power"? This is will to Will. The metaphysical concept of power is completely caught in metaphysics. The sickness within the metaphysical conceptual schema is growing. What would be the method to conceptualize non-metaphysically? This is on-going process. Heidegger points us toward the path. Underway. The pathway. 37 Why would Heidegger think that nihilism is the inner logic of western civilization and western philosophy? What about the rest of the globe, and yes, even Hegel talks about Egypt. The Greek were great, but the Egyptians were great too. Hegel thinks every culture should have metaphysicians (see Science of Logic). 38 204 Hegel is contra Kant's perpetual peace. Hegel was not that naïve. Hegel thought it more important to bring Germany to a modern civil state. What were the other choices? Answer: none. 38.5 Good or evil is a metaphysical distinction. Heidegger sees good and evil as an ontological possibility. Ontology is a different perspective on all questions. Heidegger was pointing this out as contra Nietzsche's beyond good and evil. Heidegger's dialogue with Schelling is against the background of his Nietzsche project. 39 What does it mean that we are without a system? That means we have no systematic organization. Only parts, no wholeness. What is the structure of the whole? Can we ask this question without doing some kind of metaphysics? The structure of the whole has a low point and the highest point. This system needs a whole value system with it. System and a value-system belong together. Can we have a system or the system (Hegel), which does not include a value-system built into its essential nature? If we take the valuesystem out of our head, then what is running around inside of us? 40 The system needs a methodology to make sure (certain) 'the' system, rather than, just 'a' system. All systems need some method to establish their claim to knowledge. But conversely, can we have a methodology that does not lead a system or 'the' system? This is a post-Hegel question. A free standing methodology. Or, a free standing methodology? Hegel's system is historical, but the method stands as the method for 'the' system. Both 'the' system and the methodology require each other. 41 Heidegger versus Nietzsche as greater objection than Hegel, because from Hegel there is very little for the feast and celebration of thinking. Heidegger is contra Hegel on many issues, but Heidegger and Nietzsche both start from human finitude. Although there are many differences – nevertheless, there is some agreement as to the beginning. 42 Philosophically we many say that Heidegger is closer to Nietzsche than Hegel, but in fact, Heidegger is a unique thinker and is not that close to any other philosopher. We seek to see influences on Heidegger – to find hidden sources, but after reading other philosophers – Heinrich Rickert (1863-1936), Franz Clemens Brentano (1838-1917), Emil Lask (1875-1915), Arthur Carl August Schneider (1876-1945), Friedrich Widder, Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911), Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), Carl Braig (1853-1923); none of them come close to Heidegger. 205 43 What would Nietzsche think about Heidegger's interpretation? Certainly, Heidegger's conservative nationalism would have been a surprise to Nietzsche. Not that Nietzsche was a great social liberal, but both Hegel and Nietzsche thought Europe was going to merge sooner than our current historical epoch. Still the question draws an interest. 44 We are not Heidegger nor are we Nietzsche, so where do we stand between them in a dialogue? Where are "we" in Heidegger's dialogues with Nietzsche? 45 Is it neat sheet or Nietzsche that was the philosopher? 46 We need a radical critique of Sanskrit grammar in order grasp 'our' problem with language. This is a deeper issue than anything that Wittgenstein came up with. Comparisons with Chinese and Japanese philosophy make sense. What is the connection between Heidegger and Japanese philosophy? Although at some point Heidegger said, he learned more from Chinese philosophy than Japanese or Indian philosophy. How is metaphysics embedded in the grammar of western languages via Sanskrit? Nietzsche as a philologist mentions this problem. God as just grammar. 47 Reason needs to be un-hinged from philosophical thought. This is not irrationalism or quietism, but rather, preparatory thinking, contra Hegelian conceptual thinking. Reasonlessness or reasoninglessness, which one is it? Drop reason as the (singular) only way. 48 What is the essence (Wesen) of nihilism? Following Schelling, why should we be concerned about any –ism? Not ism-logy is the task, but the matters for thinking that is underneath or beyond the –ism. What is the real issue with nihilism? Is it more than just the principal of value-positing? Nihilism is knocking at the door. 49 If Nietzsche is the last possible metaphysician ('other possibilities of metaphysic can no longer appear'), then what do we have to worry about? The old metaphysical philosophers still are alive and have force. Hegel through Marx is one of the primary 206 forces on the planet. Hegel's system and thinking has force and influence even without being mentioned. 50 Is Marx's version of socialism and communism just another form of Platonism for the people – only without religion? What are the ideals of socialism and communism? Is this a form of incomplete nihilism? Answer: yes! 51 How can Heidegger not be a countermovement to Nietzsche? Is Heidegger somehow caught in the influence of the countermovement to Nietzsche? So the question is how close do we see Heidegger and Nietzsche. We now know that as early as 1909 Heidegger was already quoting Nietzsche. Heidegger is not a recap of Hegel or Nietzsche. Heidegger is very distinct and unique, so the direct influence seems less. How to characterize the influence? Heidegger said that Nietzsche 'corrupted" (Kaputt) him ("Er hat mich kaputt gemacht"). Nietzsche's hammer speaks. 52 Why is the interrogative so important for Heidegger? The fundamental principle in philosophical thinking is the interrogative. Human's basic nature and comportment in the world is interrogative. Even Chinese grammar has the question mark (ma). 53 Is it faith in grammar or is just plain faith? Grammar functions as presumptions without any need for faith. Thus, can we or even should we get rid of grammar or even any faith we may have in grammar. Grammar is between the word and language. Is this a real philosophical problem or is just simply an issue in philology? 54 When we speak of the innocence of Becoming should we also apply it other concepts as well? Innocence of Being Innocence of time Innocence of ideals Innocence of essence and existences Innocence of technology Innocence of love Innocence of beingness (thinghood) Innocence of worlding Innocence of building, discovering the absolute system (Hegel would say, 'no') 207 55 What is the feeling of will to power? What is good? Answer: the direct and straight feeling of power itself. You can skip the 'will' altogether and go directly to the innocence of power. Or, are you part of the mob, who wants to bring down the powerful? Heidegger still breathes this Nietzschean air. 56 An open sea – an open horizon, this is a sea that has no directions, no objects, no past – a clear and open sea for humanity. What obstacles could be in the way? This is not progress but a clearing and opening. There is nothing in the way, no objects floating in the picture. 57 What is the nature of valuing? How does it allow for a revaluing? Disvaluing. Transvaluing. Metavalues. Valueless, Valuelessnessing – the process of valuelessing. We move from one set of values to another set of values. Who can move from one set to another one? Who is the one deciding on the values? The value of values speaks to the nature of values. There are lower values and higher values. Thus, we must place all values on the earth with finite mortals. No ideal realm, world, or non-living places for us to hypothesize. No non-earthly utopians. Utopians must be based on human nature, which means no trans-realm or meta-realms or hyper-realms. The meaning of the earth. 58 Does Nietzsche have any concept of Modern man that is beyond nations and more just a good European? I do not think so. Modern man only took place 50 years or so after Nietzsche was writing. Western culture is only part of the world now, but it is clearly dominates North and South America. Pressure is on in other parts of the world. This is a planetary character – strangely linked to music. 59 Nietzsche's philosophy should not be just thought about – it demands a confrontation and a thinking with – a questioning that strikes at the heart of Nietzsche. What is living and dead in Nietzsche's philosophy --does not actually take up the task of thinking with Nietzsche. Follow Nietzsche to the depths and then the question. 60 A question, a thought, a point – perhaps a goal and an aim. 208 61 Does Heidegger want any "believers"? Mostly it does not fit with Heidegger's reflection. Nietzsche wants no "believers", no "disciples", and no "followers". Where would we find "believers" like this? Nietzsche and Heidegger want thinkers to follow them and move even higher on the mountains. 62 Our earth knows great politics and has known great wars. What is left? Peace or not? What would have to happen for the lost of warfare in general? 63 What is the concept of earthly reality (Erden-Realität) for Nietzsche? Is this the meaning (Sinn) of the earth? Yes, a sister concept for Nietzsche. These concepts are all in contrast to some other "beyond" world or "true world" (wahre Welt). This great, eternal other world makes this world sick and nothing (will to nothingness). This early reality has no value or appearance. Nietzsche does not argue for this distinct but merely points it out with its hiatus consequence. The sins of the flesh are stronger than the weak. 64 If Nietzsche has one thought, then why the reiterations? Why for Heidegger as well? There is no progress and regression either --whence is the direction for thinking. Crosswise. What calls Nietzsche's thinking? 65 Did Hegel construct his system or did he find it in the world? You may say the first, Hegel would say the last. Nietzsche attacks Hegel on the "construction" side, but Hegel would say that he found "it" in the world. The "it" is a metaphysical system derived from the absolute spirit. You do not find those every day. 66 Surlei – what does that name mean to us? 67 If Nietzsche is for Becomingness and Heidegger is for Beingness, then how can they have a dialogue? What is the answer too complex for you to express? Or, should I say becomenessing? 68 209 What kind of proposition is "truth is a lie"? Where is Wittgenstein when we need him – at the movies? 69 Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a visionary philosophical text that is on the edge of the thoughtful-poetic. Perhaps this is great literature and of course great writing. This is a singular work even for Nietzsche and it was done very quickly. Why is there no other work like this one from Nietzsche? 70 The innocence if Becoming, and the necessity and innocence fit together as a revealing to the whole of Being. Who is innocent now? Let it happen. 71 If we accept or reject the thought of the eternal return of the same, why does it matter? – No practical information is given. Can we transform this idea to something useful? No. Ok, if yes, then what? 72 Greek – when we say this for Nietzsche and Heidegger, it should remind us that this is pre-Christian. Can we say Greek philosophers without bringing in Christian concepts? What would Paul say about Thucydides? Religious followers are more common than our rare plants – namely, the philosophers. Common or rare – do not worry, there is no vote. The thought may push you to become more than you thought. 73 Heidegger said, "Philosophical somnolence which is nihilism proper". But I think he only said this once, he should have developed this more, and some form of quietism is supposedly one of the Hegelian critiques of Heidegger. Let it happen or make it happen? 74 What is an eternal or permanent becoming as a finite world? This becoming is a permanent repeating of real time. Becoming is inside the One? A question for a Henologist. Perhaps our answer will come from a theologian or were you thinking an astronomer? 75 Change versus chaos --what is the difference? Which human has ever seen chaos? Answer: none, our brains will not allow it. We are totally hard wired. 210 76 With Nietzsche and Heidegger, what is a "statement" and what is something that is called a "conclusion"? Neither of these expressions is important. There are not sciences or empirical sciences. After Hegel, there is no more the Science, no absolute Science. But Hegel's writings are not a science, he is pointing toward actual knowledge. For Heidegger there are no top statements (see GA65). 77 Standpoints or standpointlessness – how does this work? Heidegger's standpoint in his interpretation of Nietzsche is just one among many. There are no standpoints --only standpointlessness. Is this practical information that will help us worry about all of the untruthfulless? No. These issues are philosophical matters. Is this too painful? I no longer believe in these matters. You also have doubts – why is that? What can your doubt do for you? No wonder and no distress. Or, just use the word: decision. A reader's question mark and a real page leaper. 78 Aphorisms lie in wait ready to spring forth and take the reader by surprise. Aphorisms spring off the page – once read and the shock is over, and then they should not be forgotten, but then lived. Re-read again, ok, re-read it twice. Do we dare bring the truth within? 79 If the time for the system is over, then why is the only methodology the aphorism? Why the essay? Can you give aphorism as a lecture? Yes. Songs of our earth. Songs of meaning – the poet may speak. 80 Meaninglessness – the process of the highest values devaluing themselves. Should it be meanlessnessing? No matter – the meaning is apparent. Can you see or hear the meaning? The sensory speaks. Can you hear it? Or, only see it? Why is that? 81 Is philosophy today through Heidegger just of part of what Nietzsche asked: "what sacred games shall we have to invent?" Philosophy as a sacred game invented to try to bring a purpose to our thinking. If humanity in general (in its relationship to the Being of beings as totality) has no purpose, perhaps individuals within the whole can point toward a goal? No new gods and no goals. 211 82 The power to create rests with the Will but does that mean that the will has the power to unbuild. Sounds like Shiva. Could Shiva die? 83 Could we have a countermovement that does not get involved in the entanglement? Answer: No. Contra-ism. Contra-isming. Ok, say it faster, then it will sound like English. 84 The highest value God – God, has devalued God. God has shown us that there is no moral God. The "why" finds no answer to why God did this to us? Don't count on it. 85 If nihilism is the inner logic to western history, then what is the course of western history as it is linked to the history of western metaphysics? This is just a complex way of saying there has always been eternal ideas and ideals given the –isms that improvers of mankind have promulgated. Of course, wrongly. Humanity is improving, for Nietzsche the highest point has already been reached, so no future goal or ideal for Nietzsche. What happen to Nietzsche's overman? Answer: too much honesty at the breaking points. 86 How is the order of the hierarchy of values ranked? The highest values or the lowest values become flipped. Some of values are of the earth and surely must be transitory. A value classification system is still a system. Without a system, then what is left? Heidegger does not have a "system". The time of the "system" is gone for him, but then whatever is left can not be "systematic". Heidegger has a problem with the project called a 'book'. How does this fit in with his philosophical thinking? Nietzsche problem with his major project called "Will to Power". 87 How can finitude not be a rock concept? Space by its nature may seem infinite, but finitude is a concept that only belongs to time. At this time we can say only that there is a direction to space and time, but no eternal or unlimited. 88 Nietzsche said Zarathustra is no longer concerned with happiness, but with his work. Crabs, fish, -what is this? How can Zarathustra go fishing on the tops of mountains? Zarathustra is like a ripen grape. In vino vertas. 212 89 Heidegger speaks of the swamp of irrationalism. Interestingly enough there are not many swamps in the Black Forest. 90 Heidegger has a special kind of opponent with Hegel, but his critical confrontation (Auseinander-setzung) with Nietzsche runs in a different light. Something else shines through during this process, and pathway. Nietzsche's life as an "experiment of knowers." Heidegger is showing us his self-education as a thinker. Heidegger does not follow Nietzsche's lead to build cities under Vesuvius. Back to the issue. Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche seems calmer and he knows how Nietzsche fits into history as the last metaphysician. Later to be called the last thinker of the western world. Heidegger'a mastery of the texts and his writing out of his metahistory of philosophy put his Nietzsche reading in a much wider context for Heidegger – he knows too much by the late 1930s. Why did wait until 1961 to publish his Nietzsche encounter? 91 Time is still central to Heidegger and the eternal return of the same lets Heidegger into the lecture hall, because Nietzsche on time is not being guided by Aristotle like the rest of the metaphysical tradition, but rather something closer to Heidegger. Where does Nietzsche's conceptions of time from? Perhaps we can look to Heraclitus and certainly contra Christianity. No eschatology for Nietzsche contra Hegel. Do you want to know the story to humanity – look elsewhere for the story and purpose to the whole project? There is no more eschatology for Nietzsche even the process of teleology has been uprooted and cleansed. 92 Why did Heidegger leave the whole issue of Dionysus out of his reading of Nietzsche? The sensuous realm of the inverted Platonism. In the last part of Ecce Homo, Nietzsche says, "Have I been understood? Dionysus versus the crucified." (See also Will to Power, #1052). The two types. The Greek life (affirming life) versus the Christian (denial of life). Is Heidegger's philosophy life affirming? No, it is not even a question for Heidegger. 93 Heidegger has a special filter for reading Nietzsche, since Nietzsche's philosophy is so multi-faceted and is so complex. For example, in Being and Time Heidegger makes a reference to Nietzsche on "conscious", but what happens to that subject in Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche? It does not appear at all, because there is a different project afoot. 213 94 If the time of "system" ("systems") is over for Nietzsche and Heidegger, then I want to provoke the contradiction (not the Hegelian): what remains to be thought? Not just a 'yes' or 'no' to the most questionable. Even the contradiction is contra to the system, and yes, to freedom too. Do we attempt the contradiction or is it just there? Some how it is given to us. The important philosophical questions do not change, but the answers and context are historical. 95 Let us leave the "eternal" out – just bracket it for the time being. What nonsense is this? 96 Kant is serious; Hegel is the "struggle of the notion"; Nietzsche wants a god that could dance and he needs – play; Heidegger needs releasement or (Gelassenheit). Heidegger has more? Heidegger is distressed at the lack of distress about the abandonment of Being. Think of the famous quote from Plato's Sophist at the beginning of Being and Time: "For manifestly you have long been aware of what you mean when you use the expression 'Being.' We, who used to think we understood it, have now become perplexed." This needs to re-read and re-thought at every point with Heidegger. What does this mean for our age? 97 Spinoza equals Hegelian, which equals pantheism, which is fatalism, which is atheism. A philosopher's goal is to think like a crab in reverse. Where did these concept gifts come from? Answer: dusty old books – where did you think. Can we bring this back into life today? Yes – let it breathe, let life breathe. 98 Nietzsche thinks that since Plato, philosophy as such has been dominated by morality (Will to Power, #412). This does not sound like either Heidegger or Nietzsche or even Heidegger's version of Nietzsche's Platonism. Why does Heidegger only view Nietzsche's Platonism in a metaphysical way? Heidegger leaves morality out of Nietzsche's philosophy – although freedom and justice are important. 99 "Joy in what is coming and lies in the future" (Will to Power, #417). This is what Nietzsche calls Dionysian wisdom, his first solution. Joy – is this religious bliss or just some psychological state for this hour? 214 100 Following Nietzsche and Heidegger have they "sought a new center" (Will to Power, #417). For Heidegger the center is a step back (Schritt zurück). The step back has a strangely Kantian ring or a Kantian move. Foundations are not Hegelian or Nietzschean, but when Kant talks about science (Wissenschaft) before metaphysics, then we are in the realm of a "metaphysics of metaphysics" like Kant's letter to Letter to Marcus Herz (May 11, 1781). Nietzsche does not have much a sense of the "a priori", but Heidegger in the 1930s would still have some of the "a prior" movement in his blood. Nietzsche would have fixed that problem. 101 If Nietzsche preferred Georg Lichtenberg among German books (see discard draft for Ecce Homo), then how would Heidegger had viewed Lichtenberg? See they are not even close – Heidegger and Nietzsche in some areas. 102 Who are Heidegger's countertypes? He makes a remark that doctoral candidates are refuting Kant and Hegel – as if that were possible, doctoral candidates with too much hubris would be Heidegger's countertypes. The little minds. At least we have one counterexample for Heidegger, but I think there must be more. 103 Why is freedom so strong that those who split off from the herd cannot find a common goal? Why would Nietzsche want us to have a common or should I say as not so "common," goal? In Heidegger's thinking, this is not even a question mark. 104 Zarathustra versus Dionysus. Nietzsche and Heidegger both agree that the image of Zarathustra defines Nietzsche's thinking, but should the issue of Dionysus be left out? No. I think it is early – a Greek way of attacking Christianity. Nietzsche's counterpunch to Platonism is the main event for philosophers. But Nietzsche would still rather be a satyr to a saint, perhaps even to a philosopher. 105 Philosophy is not as the language mechanics of city life, but rather, is high in the mountains in solitude above the masses. The muse and physician of our times. Two times Heidegger was called to Berlin – not even a question for him. Dwelling is not just another apartment for sleeping. Philosophy's homesickness is a returning to dwelling. 215 106 Heidegger had pupils, but he pushed them in a very special way (not toward Heidegger or Heideggerianism) toward themselves. Remember Heidegger as a teacher, but not just to the people in the classroom at that time, but to the rest of his pupils (us too) – all the lectures which we have now, which have been published. Nietzsche and Heidegger want to lose their pupils. The meaning of the Being of beings – why do we need pupils for that question? Will we take a vote on the issue? Answer: no. 107 Does Heidegger's voice come through Nietzsche's? No. Heidegger lets us grasp essential parts of Nietzsche, but not a level of Nietzsche. Heidegger keeps his distance. Have we? 108 Heidegger gives us some sense of decision-ism, but it is in the background and does not come to the foreground. Perhaps in other so far unpublished writings Heidegger will be more specific. The call cannot be a 'willing,' it must come of its own accord. The future of this question still awaits us. Heidegger may be the only one that got the call – come on let us get serious! Why would he tell us? Philosophers are a rare plant. 109 What would be an eschatological decision? The goal of the last man would be the overman. Perhaps for Heidegger it would be the goal of humanity to leave metaphysics outside and behind us. This would not be a counterpunch or any part of a countermovement, but rather a complete leaving behind. Is Heidegger really for or against an eschatological decision? It sounds like re-baked metaphysics as onto-theology. Can these concepts be re-baked into a non-metaphysical or post-metaphysical thinking? Or, are we pushing the values into some greater "later". Not now – maybe later. How much later? On the way to later – as if we had a choice. For Heidegger do we not have an option of somehow thinking our way of anything (it is not just thought and grammar, or rhetoric), but rather it is more our historical planetary situation. This is more than words on paper. 110 When we say, the "thought of the eternal return of the same" came to Nietzsche (August 1881), are we not already caught in the dilemma of subjective-objective Cartesianism that has long been the metaphysical trap? The "thought" means not in the real actual sensuous objective world (reality). Some may say it is not in the external world (not in the eternal supersensuous world). So, what is the location of the "thought of the eternal return of the same"? Is it in the subjective or objective world? Answer: sounds like subjective world (res cogitans); I think, therefore I have thoughts. Heidegger upgrades this to the way that Nietzsche is responding to the planetary forces in this epoch. 216 111 If we had the "answer" or got the "answer", then what would we do with it? Would the truth be enough? What is the meaning (Sinn) of the Being of beings? Answer: temporality. Does this mean that we now have the final "answer"? Answer: yes and no. You do the math. 112 What does it mean that Heidegger has given us a veil over his thought? The single thought that a thinker thinks. Heidegger's unthought in his thought – that is, where Heidegger shrank back from the forbidden thought. Heidegger is not a contemporary with himself. He tried to jump into the Sunlight (Plato's cave), but he is too modern for any attempt of jumping over his own shadow. 113 Although Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) and Eugen Fink (1905-1975) were Heidegger's students and engaged Heidegger in person as friends, can we now say that some of us are in fact more Heideggerian than Gadamer or Fink, since we can now read more than any Heideggerian before us. Who are "we" now? Heidegger's students and friends only had a very small slice of Heidegger. Now as we find more texts and can read Heidegger from 1910-1976, the "we" of Heidegger land know more about development in his thinking. Even the letters often show us his mind as work. 114 Nietzsche's thought of the eternal return of the same is the highest yes and affirmation that can ever be achieved. For Heidegger there is only one supreme thought – the meaning of Being of beings. Heidegger calls this the open, the clearing, or just Ereignis. But at the critical level how can there be any rank (highest) or any values whatsoever with regard to Heidegger's thinking? Also there is no worldview or constructing a worldview for Heidegger. These questions are all tied to Heidegger's denial of value metaphysics. Perhaps this denial of value metaphysics is little known; it does in fact have broad implications for philosophy. What does it mean? No ethics for one. Can you have ethics without value ranks? What would that look like? 115 Truth is the process of unconcealing (Unverborgenheit) itself – who is the agent? 116 What does a metaphysical theory of values have to do with ethical theories? Values and ranks. Ethics leads to ranks and order. Bad, good, evil, God, happiness and values; or, should it be the improvement of humanity or the greatest good for the greatest numbers; 217 re-valuation or trans-valuation of the high and low values, namely, all of the values. The trans-valuation of all values – is still the metaphysics of values (metaphysics of will). The revaluation of all values is just re-doing the process of valuation. Valuation is a process of the will. We still have the agent doing the valuation. Man's nature as valuation. Man's nature as sympathy (Max Scheler (1874-1928). How can valuation end up with devaluation? The highest values are devaluation. Nietzsche says values devaluate themselves. What is the value of science or even baseball? How do they rank? Ranking uses values as the background at least. 117 Dionysus and Zarathustra are both used by Nietzsche to give us a way into his philosophy. Heidegger insight are linked to Zarathustra – why is that? Zarathustra is advocate and a teacher. 118 Aphorisms are like war, either you knock out your opponent or you have lost and you go back defeated. Truth is disclosed or attempts are forgotten. 119 How much of an essay is structured and hence can one say there is a methodology to philosophy? Philosophers assumed too much with the essay and paper. Or, should we push the contra position – therefore, the aphorism as the only philosophical methodology. 120 If we have lost the "truth", then how are going to re-gain it? A philosopher's problem. Who in the street has this problem? Answer: not the "one". 121 Nietzsche's philosophy is like a bird – flying over head dipping and weaving. On a good day, Nietzsche becomes an eagle flying over humanity. 122 Why do we need a bridge from here to some other place or time? The abyss is the nothingness that bridges cross over. Slipping into the abyss. 123 Zarathustra teaches the eternal return of the same (most abysmal thought) and the meaning of the earth, namely, the overman. Should we say the meta-man? Not meta218 physics, but rather meta-human. This expression is not a metathat means some other world. Trans-humanity as our future unfolds. 124 What is the meaning of all of Nietzsche's imaginary of animals? Does this lead in the western tradition to the concept of homo animal rationale or are we something more, something special? What is the difference between man as animal rationale and man as something more? Critical difference. This is leitmotif for Heidegger at every point, but I know where does he mention names with this metaphysical idea. 125 Can we be the Shepard for the earth or is it just a case of the will to dominate the earth? This is one of the main issues in the Heidegger-Nietzsche dialogue that is an ultramodern problem. 126 What does it mean to be human to reach for the earthly next step, always a beyond what we have here. Not sufficient with the way things are. 127 Pan-Europeanism is certainly more Nietzsche than one of Heidegger's pathways. Heidegger points toward pan-humanity, but it's not developed in detail. Why? Heidegger is contra the metaphysical nature of man and humanity. 128 Heidegger's decision-ism is a small part of his struggle with Nietzsche. Freedom shatters Hegel's Science of Logic (Wissenschaft der Logik) and it touches on Heidegger's decision-ism. Does decision-ism have a connection to the will? Heidegger rejects the grand politics of Nietzsche as well as many others in the 1930s. 129 Does Heidegger's countermovement to Nietzsche's contra Platonism mean Heidegger is a Platonist? Answer: no, it means a non-countermovement or a non-thesis thesis. 130 Heidegger's critique of Nietzsche's biologism is that it is part of Nietzsche's metaphysical concept of life. For Hegel life is spirit and reason. Nietzsche's life turns into will. The will becomes the will to power, will to Will, and then just the one single will. 219 131 Eschatological links breakout in Nietzsche and a few times for Heidegger. This is perhaps one of the last metaphysical concepts to be given up. The futures, the goals, the aims, unleash the arrow from the bow. No utopia, no progress, no improvement. 132 Are we asking Heidegger to solve our Nietzsche dilemma? Can Nietzsche be resolved for us? Can Heidegger help us to pigeon-hole Nietzsche? If only we can say Nietzscheanism and be done with Nietzsche. After Heidegger's work on Nietzsche, then can we please close the book on Nietzsche's thinking. Nietzsche is the last metaphysician, so does that mean it is over and done, we can get on to something else now. Answer: I do not think so. We are stuck. Backward or forward --nothing happens. 133 What is left of Nietzsche after Heidegger? Dionysus seems to be one point that Heidegger does not touch. At least Eugen Fink brings this point to Heidegger as something left out – Heidegger shrank back at the issue of Dionysus. Nietzsche's radical interpretation of Dionysus did not play well in Todtnauberg (Black Forest). Where would that lead Heidegger, since the overman is more important for Heidegger? 134 Polemos – war, Aus-einander-setzung, critical confrontation and debate, and struggle with Nietzsche. Two thinkers engaged in the matter for thought – how do we characterize this dialogue? What does Heidegger want to accomplish in his dialogue with Nietzsche? Teach his student something different. He was tired of teaching the Greeks or Kant or Hegel. No – Heidegger's deeper understanding of his metahistory of Being pointed the way to the importance of Nietzsche at the end of metaphysics. We should think of Nietzsche as the last philosopher in western philosophy, as the last thinker of western philosophy (metaphysics). Heidegger sees Hegel as the summation of metaphysics, but Nietzsche is the final and last one. In the 1920s it was Kant and Nietzsche was taken up in the 1930s, but some how Hegel was not left out, but certainly not central at any point. Why is that? Heidegger taught a lot of courses on Hegel, but even those lectures series resulted in short writings. 135 In Heidegger's analysis of Hegel and Schelling, he makes a point of metaphysics being fundamentally onto-theo-logical. Why is Nietzsche not brought into the issue of ontotheo-logical? Heidegger said, "Any metaphysical thinking is onto-logy or it is nothing at all" "Jedes metaphysische Denken ist Onto-logie oder es ist überhaupt nichts. " (The 220 Word of Nietzsche: 'God is Dead'). What happened to onto-theo-logical issues and Nietzsche's theology? Heidegger does not seem to take up the theological issues in Nietzsche. Only the death of God is worked in from a philosophical perspective, the rest of Nietzsche's remaining theology is not taken up – even though it is certainly more a negative theology. Why not the problem of evil and freedom like Schelling? 136 Nietzsche's fundamental metaphysical position, his inner nature, he calls it amor fati. Love of necessity and fate. This is a complete and without reservation – a yes to life. This is a yes and a love of the necessity of fate. Fate and destiny are a very unchristian and clearly a very Greek view of life. The fates await us or we call on our own destiny. My principal for Nietzsche is amor fati. Does this say enough or do you need more details? 137 The unthought in Nietzsche's thinking is partially expressed by the final fact – amor fati. The fact we arrive at last – amor fati. However, this is not a metaphysical principal that Nietzsche is giving us as a gift. 138 The questioning itself is brought into the process of questioning. What is the meaning (Sinn) of the Being of beings? What kind of questioning is that? The answer can be both metaphysical or another possibility would point us toward a non-metaphysical (nonempirical, non-rational, non-idealism) position and answer. 139 Why does Heidegger think that Hegel was the first to have a philosophical history of philosophy? Kant developed a metahistory of philosophy. Perhaps not as elaborate or elegant as Hegel, but nevertheless, Kant did develop his own view on the overall pattern of the history of philosophy. Nietzsche did too in the Twilight of Idols or How to Philosophize with a Hammer (written August and September, 1888); in the section entitled: HOW THE "TRUE WORLD" FINALLY BECAME A FABLE. The History of an Error. As Nietzsche said the Wanderer and His Shadow (#267), "There are no educators. As thinker, one should speak only of self-education". All of this history is not just for scholars, but rather, we need thinkers to plow the fields too. 140 How can we understand amor fati as a metaphysical position or thought? How can the love be metaphysical? Perhaps only Spinoza, the love of God (amor Dei) speaks to metaphysical love. Perhaps Schelling and Feuerbach too. The Being of beings as love. 221 141 The love of necessity is almost a counterposition to the love of freedom. No free choice only necessity of the eternal return of the same. No will to will anything either the same or the will to choose. The will to necessity – what does that mean? 142 Has Heidegger cleared the path for us to come to grips with Nietzsche? No – it is still about Heidegger. If you want Nietzsche only, well that is fine, then just read Nietzsche, why bother with just reading Heidegger on Nietzsche? It may not be good Nietzsche, but it is rather good "Heidegger". 143 Hegel was the first one to put the importance of the history of philosophy and history of the world. Plus, Hegel developed a philosophy of history in general. But in a very strange way after Marx it was Nietzsche that completely grasped and just "assumed" the historical. It was Heidegger's reading of Dilthey that brought much of the historical into focus for Heidegger. We are learning more about Heidegger's very early reading of Nietzsche from 1909 that had already opened Heidegger up to the importance of history in general. On the other hand, it is strange that Wittgenstein is not touched by any sense of the historical. Was this a function of the biographical aspect of Wittgenstein or his philosophy or a sign of the cultural-historical background of philosophy at the time? Certainly, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, Dithery, and Heidegger all had some historical sense and context to their philosophizing. Philosophy without history is philology – perhaps. Wittgenstein for good or bad (sickness and in health) is a completely historical (historical-lessness) thinker. What happened and does that explain an interest that is made too simple? Take the historical out of philosophy and it makes it all a little too simple minded. 144 Heidegger rejected value philosophy during his fight against the neo-Kantians like Wilhelm Windelband and Heidegger's own teacher Heinrich Rickert during the 1920s. Since he was already reading Nietzsche from 1909, one wonders if Heidegger had already thought out his critique of values from his critical encounter with Nietzsche and then used that against neo-Kantians. The rejection of value philosophy seems to hit on two very dissimilar fronts, namely, the neo-Kantians and Nietzsche. Note: Heidegger's contra Nietzsche and the neo-Kantians on value-philosophy. Heidegger used one punch and got two for one. However, Heidegger's powerful critique of value philosophy has implications for ethics in general. Philosophy in general is only ontology for Heidegger – but not for Nietzsche. Heidegger is contra Nietzsche on the pivotal point of ontology for philosophy. Nietzsche is an anti-ontologist! 222 145 If you accept the eternal return of the same, then you will affirm amor fati as your formula for the greatness in humanity. Just say it and affirm it – amor fati! 146 Heidegger pushes the importance of human being thrust into a world of possibilities. This is not just an empty-ontic free choice. Rather this points toward a human's rich imagination and creativity that used the opening to project into that realm with the "force" of possibility. Imagination requires possibility a priori. Art is the expression of imagination. Clearly, Nietzsche has more imagination than any other philosopher heretofore. Art and music were the highest values for Nietzsche. He even mentions giving birth to a "dancing" star. Nietzsche composed music too. Plus the early influence of Richard Wagner (1813-1883). 147 Is there a medicine that will cure us of nihilism? Do we want to be cured? Why are we sick? Platonism and neo-Platonism are both decomposing disease. Socrates needed to give Asclepius a rooster. He had been sick a long time and then as he was dying, he was being cured of the sickness of life (Twilight of the Idols, section 'The problem of Socrates'). Nihilism – we can make it worse. Let it happen. 148 The truth. Do not forget. Heidegger is against Nietzsche's: Will to power Eternal return of the same Overman Amor fati Nihilism Beyond good and evil Genealogy of morals 149 These concepts are to the chagrin of Nietzsche, since these concepts are still seen in the broad light of metaphysics, and are captured by the smell and sight of metaphysics. Those dirty dogs. 223 150 Note: the question is essential for Heidegger not the "book" Being and Time. In a sense there is only one question for Heidegger. I think I can rephrase it: what is the meaning of the Being for humans who are temporal and historical in a relationship to the opening that makes the Being of beings possible? What are the characteristics of that question? What is the structure and implication of that question? Thus, the question stands outside the interpretation from the so-called "book". Heidegger has always had a problem with what it means to do a "book". What is the structure of a "book" project? For Heidegger it is more the question, what is the structure of the question that counts – this is philosophy by philosophizing. 151 Georg Christoph Lichtenberg used the aphoristic methodology, but why? Nietzsche critique of reason and the logical led him to try different forms of his methodology, and his aphoristic works and his notebooks provide a way for Nietzsche to totally express his thought. We are indeed very close to the actual process of philosophical thinking without the structure of the essay or the form of a "book". Why did Heidegger have a problem with a book form? Perhaps these are methodological problems breaking through into his philosophy and his writing projects. Heidegger talks about the unmastered plan from his writing entitled: Contributions to Philosophy (from Ereignis). He said in this book, "The outline of these Contributions is designed to prepare for the crossing and is drawn from the still unmastered ground plan of the historicity of the crossing itself" (Der Aufriss dieser »Beitrage« zur Vorbereitung des Übergangs ist dem noch unbewältigten Grundriss der Geschichtlichkeit des Übergangs selbst entnommen, section #1). We must wait to see if some of his other monographs from this period (Das Ereignis or Die Anfang) that have yet to be published have a plan like a book. From what I hear about these volumes -there is no plan in them. So, we are left with the problem of the "book" format in Heidegger's philosophy. The concept of the "werke" is at odds with Heidegger's concept of philosophy, at least as far as we know from this period. Important question: is this just another way of saying – no methodology? No method – no truth (Descartes). 152 In which direction would Nietzsche points us toward – ahistorical powers or the suprahistorical (art, religion, pity, nature, philosophy)? The answer is in the question. Sometimes the content seems strangely Hegelian – why is that? 153 Nietzsche knew about Mikhail Bakunin (1813-1876), the greatest Russian anarchist through his association with Richard Wagner. But did Nietzsche know that Bakunin attended F.W.J. Schelling's lectures in Berlin in the 1840s? Did Nietzsche ever read much by Schelling – I think not. Other than Wagner and Schopenhauer, Nietzsche was not a great fan of German philosophers (he did briefly read some Kant, etc). 224 154 Listen to Nietzsche. During the early 1870s, Nietzsche mentions the group of contemporary German philosophers: Hermann Ulrich, Jakob Frohschammer, Johain Huber, Mortiz Carriere, and Immanuel Fichte. Who knows these philosophers today? Were they famous at that time? Perhaps these were professors of philosophy only. Most of the great 19th century philosophers that we think of at this time that are linked with the 19th century were outsiders – Feurbach, Marx, Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), and Nietzsche. The whole left-wing Hegelians were on the outside. 155 One thing to note, metaphysics reached its absolute zenith with the grand Hegelian metaphysical system. Nietzsche for Heidegger was the "last" not the "high" point of metaphysics. The wave was its high point with Hegel. Even Nietzsche was part of the countermovement to Hegel. Perhaps "we" too are part of the movement against the Hegelian system. Who is not part of the countermovement to Hegel? Heidegger at least feels he is part of the countermovement as well. 156 Profound obscurity – why would you think that would hurt. You have no idea what pain really means, more than just a word or expression. Perhaps agony as a philosophical starting point should be considered. In a different way, Ernst Jünger (1895-1998), wrote in 1934 Über den Schmerz (On Pain or On Agony – possible English translations). 157 Nietzsche said, "There is nothing I desire more, for the good of that philosophy, than to be imitated and surpassed" (19 [211] 1872-73). I think Heidegger would agree with the "surpassed" part, but the later Nietzsche and Heidegger at the end stage would not want to be imitated. Heidegger would think that imitated is not possible. How would one think to surpass Heidegger? At least, I can ask the question. Answers are on the drawing board. End point. 158 Hegel developed the supreme correct categorization of the world though the absolute spirit – what just a written project? He defined then re-valued the signification of the categorized. 159 Nietzsche used the expression "the teleology of the philosopher" (19 [245]). 225 What does this mean? What is the end and goal of the philosopher? Philosopher becomes an acorn and then someday becomes something new, not just more. 160 Systems as Anthropomorphisms speaks volumes for Nietzsche against Hegel, and for Schelling and Heidegger. 161 Metaphorism is essentially a special form of metaphysics. 162 Is metaphysics really impossibility or just a dream? 163 Philosophers who want to become thinkers are chased by the drive of scholarship. 164 What we are talking about for Nietzsche is a system of non-metaphysics without prior foundations. How would that work? The call to an absolute system made at the height of German idealism. System=idealism. Nietzsche does have a touch of the "a priori". The will to power as the final fact we come down to...Nietzsche is not a realist. 165 How would one become a superior Kant scholar? Read Kant and Kantians – produce book. Or, use Kant to make a new great philosophical cake. How sweet would that be? Scholarship can help a thinker, but it can also drag one down. Kant was chosen to be a philosopher, but not a scholar. Kant himself was against just reading about philosophical systems. Kant said, "How should it be possible to learn philosophy anyway? Every philosophical thinker builds his own work, so to be speak, on someone's else's ruins, but no work has ever come to be that was to be lasting in all its parts. Hence, one cannot learn philosophy, then, just because it is not yet given. But even granted that there was a philosophy actually at hand, no one who learned it would be able to say he was a philosopher, for subjectively his cognitions of it would always be only historical" (Lectures on Logic, et. p. 538). But note here: Kant is saying when you read a philosopher you are not doing philosophy, because your thoughts would be historical only. Just repeating philosophy does not make a philosopher – thank you very much Kant. So, philosophy is not that easy as just reading philosophy, now you have to actually think and philosophize, but within the proper philosophical horizon and context (thank you Heidegger for our clarification). What is the nature of truth? What is the nature of temporality? 226 166 Why would you the reader of these aphorisms take a small truth over a larger truth? Could there be a large truth buried somewhere in here or in any book. Should we not gather all of the nuts for the long winter? Even squirrels forget where some of the nuts are buried. Certainly, Nietzsche found some of the Greek nuts. 167 I write here about the foothills only you can go into the mountain by yourself. An experiment and attempting in self-education. Self-discovery or how much joy can one give oneself. Crank up the self-discovery. Know yourself and soon! 168 Philosophers are not heard around the world, but this awful American music is heard and promoted around the globe. 169 Can philosophy be worthless? Only if you conceive of it as knowledge, however, or if you know this as self-discovered knowledge then its part of the bricks for your own road. Heidegger went on country pathways, although sometimes Nietzsche made Heidegger step off of the path and look; what happened to Heidegger? 170 Why must a story have an end? The story of humanity and its history will have a purpose and an end. Is that possible? 171 Do we wish the atrophy of life or the final breath of spirit crushed out of humans? Answer: no overman. No dancing star for us. 172 My way of exculpation is not to hide under or over scholarship. 173 Methodology – self-attempters, self-experimenters, self-education, self-discovery; these signs all point the way to pas by scholarship. Let the matter for thought – happen. Happenness – endlessly. Methodology is how we go about philosophizing... How come there are no classes on "Methodology" in philosophy departments? Perhaps too many 227 questions, since the "drum beat" is always just given. You mean there are many different ways to do philosophy? Well perhaps some where else, since certainly no here! We only do it (philosophizing) one way. 174 It is interesting that Nietzsche made use of the Latin expression to describe his own most innermost nature, expressions like amor fati, ecce homo, etc – that is, not his beloved Greek. Why is that? 175 If these writings are difficult well then read faster or slower as if anything would really help. 176 The teleological question. The health of the individual or the health of humanity. For Nietzsche and perhaps for Heidegger it is the indeed the health of individual. 177 Is Nietzsche's immoralist position in need of metaphysics of values as a foundation? What is the relationship? Ethics, moralities, values, devaluations, revaluations, transvaluation, all with Nietzsche's attempt to lose metaphysics. Transvaluation of transphysics. All philosophical systems are in ruin (Kant). 178 Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (original title was the: Science of the Experience of Consciousness) goes through various shapes (Gestalt?) of self-consciousness toward the final stage of absolute knowledge. Hegel says, "The series of configurations which consciousness goes through along this road is, in reality, the detailed history of the education of consciousness itself to the standpoint of Science" (Wissenschaft). (Phenomenology of Spirit, et. p. 50). (Bewusstseins selbst zur Wissenschaft. Jener Vorsatz stellt die Bildung in der einfachen Weise des Vorsatzes als unmittelbar abgetan und geschehen vor; dieser Weg aber ist gegen diese Unwahrheit die wirkliche Ausführung.) This upward movement does not lead to anything like the overman. There is no connection between Hegel and Nietzsche on the general conception of anything like the overman. These two projects are entirely different. In addition, the place of reason and Absolute Spirit in Hegel and Nietzsche are totally different. Hegel contra Nietzsche on just about everything – perhaps the Greeks in general is a little bit of common ground. Except for Hegel it is not Plato but Aristotle that is the leading light. Hegel made Aristotle speak German. 179 228 Heidegger and Nietzsche are both "attempters". Most of the time they do not give static "answers". Nietzsche says God is too gross an answer. Nietzsche and Heidegger both are going under (Untergang). Nietzsche tried essays, aphorisms, a novel, explications of aphorisms, and poems. Heidegger had problems in his "unity" to produce a "work". Heidegger wrote reviews, essays, Being and Time (uncompleted), a few dialogues, and a written project he called, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) in English: Contributions to Philosophy: (From Enowning); which he later said that it was not in a form that he demanded for "a publication as a "work"". Why did Heidegger have a problem with his writing projects that were "works"? He went so deep into the methodological issues that he came out the other side. Heidegger's non-metaphysical position makes the methodology issue much bigger than philosophy. Are these aphorisms at an attempt to avoid the concept of a "book," since it is too tough? 180 Are these works or books or monographs – what are these written projects that Heidegger spent so much time on? Most of what we have are very extensive lecture notes for courses and seminars. In his second major "non-work" (Contributions to Philosophy: (From Enowning); GA65), Heidegger talks about the "still unmastered ground plan of the historicity of the crossing itself" (GA 65, et p. 5, German pages 5-7). So what is the plan for the "non-book"? Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938). Gesamtausgabe volume 65 (GA65). 181 This does not point to some final "philosophical position" for Heidegger. 182 Heidegger and Nietzsche both think that the time of true systems is over in some kind of final way for philosophy. Nietzsche and Heidegger both have a fundamental grasp of history (Geschichte) as philosophical thinking. This is stronger for the both of them than Hegel. Marx was overcome with history, he was drowned by history. Heidegger's thinking on the historical was pushed by Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911). 183 Nietzsche and Heidegger both wanted a transformation of current "man" (last man) or (animal rationale) into something more, overman or Da-Sein. 184 Nietzsche wrote music and Heidegger spoke of the "song of Seyn". Perhaps not the perfect fit. 185 229 But clearly Heidegger, has a "the question of all questions" and Nietzsche perhaps has a few key expressions: amor fati, ecce homo, immoralist, eternal return of the same, will to power, revaluation of all values, innocence of becoming, and God is dead. But Nietzsche did not have any "final" questions or metaphysical concept namely, no "final" state or position. Heidegger does not have any "final" position, but he does have some "final" questions. Nietzsche clearly rejected teleology and eschatology; can we say the samething for Heidegger? Why not? 186 Both Heidegger and Nietzsche consider this project for the few and rare people. 187 Heidegger and Nietzsche both have a very special relationship to the Greeks even more so than Kant or Hegel. Heidegger is closest. 188 Nietzsche and Heidegger both are not looking for a philosophical proof. They are critical philosophers (not Kantian critical or analytical philosophy), but both in their own way. 189 Heidegger and Nietzsche both are strongly against Platonism and neo-Platonism. In addition, this is different than Hegel's history of philosophy. 190 Nietzsche and Heidegger both do not want disciples. 191 Does Nietzsche has some kind of all overall worldview and is it important to understand his philosophy? Heidegger is very critical of worldviews and their connection to philosophy, but he does not bring this up in his dialogue with Nietzsche. Nietzsche worldview is like a bird of prey – where are all of those tasty sheep? Sheep are everywhere. 192 Heidegger and Nietzsche are both in distress over their condition and the condition of thought (thinking, philosophical thought). For Hegel, it is a nation without metaphysics. Hegel in the first preface to the Science of Logic says, 230 "If it is remarkable when a nation has become indifferent to its constitutional theory, to its national sentiments, its ethical customs and virtues, it is certainly no less remarkable when a nation loses its metaphysics, when the spirit which contemplates its own pure essence is no longer a present reality in the life of the nation." Heidegger has distress or the lack of distress over the loss of the Being question. 193 Nietzsche and Heidegger are both giving warnings about increasing erudition and scholarship, which is pushing philosophy away. Philosophy is always being re-thought, and yet, philosophy never changes. Philosophy does not get further along or makes "progress". Contra position to Kant's What Real Progress has Metaphysics Made in Germany Since the Time of Leibniz and Wolff? (Welches sind die wirklichen Fortschritte, die Metaphysik seit Leibnizens und Wolffs Zeiten in Deutschland gemacht hat?) Kant was not sure that any progress had been made, he said, "But this science is metaphysics, and that completely changes matters. This is a boundless sea in which progress leaves no trace and on whose horizon there is no visible destination that allows one to perceive how near one has come to it". (et. p. 51). Did Kant ultimately think that the only progress that had been made in metaphysics was Kant himself? Kant said at the very end of Critique of Pure Reason, "The critical path alone is still open." (Der kritische Weg ist allein noch offen.). The metaphysics of metaphysics becomes the 'Critique of Pure Reason' and allows for metaphysics to make progress. Perhaps forward, but certainly backwards into the foundations of metaphysics. The roots of a tall tree (Descartes). The dark allusion is spreading out among us. 194 What is the news from the philosophical war front? Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Nietzsche all signed up for the military, they all served, but I think Wittgenstein killed the most people. 195 Nietzsche said something very interesting about truth, "The world that concerns us is false; that is, it has no factual substance to it, but is rather a poetic filling in and rounding out of a meager sum of observations; it is "in flux," as something becoming, as a constantly sliding and shifting fabrication that never approaches the truth: for-there is no "truth." (Will to Power, # 616). Where do we have to stand to affirm this and only this? Can you say this is the truth and have to be affirmed with your soul? Boy would Nietzsche be surprised at this thought. 196 Buddhism for Nietzsche and Heidegger is an interesting notion. Nietzsche said, "to a Buddhism for Europeans? to nihilism? (Genealogy of Morals, Preface, Section 5). Heidegger said, "The less a being man is and the less he insists upon the being which he 231 finds himself to be, so much nearer does he come to being (No Buddhism! the opposite)". (Contributions to Philosophy: (From Enowning) GA 65 p 170-171). In general, both Nietzsche and Heidegger view themselves as counter to Buddhism as they understand that philosophy and religion (somehow it is both in a fundamental way). Nietzsche calls Buddhism "weary nihilism" (Will to Power, #23 (Spring-Fall 1887) and he also refers to Buddhism as one of the two "great nihilistic movements" (Will to Power, #220, November 1887 – March 1888). Does Heidegger pick up on the themes of Buddhism as nihilism? No, why not? Heidegger is deeply influence by eastern thought and he has opened a significant dialogue with eastern thought, but he was always reluctant to put anything in writing about eastern thought, I think because of Heidegger's relationship to the essence of language, and to spoken and written languages. He really understood the issues and the impact on philosophizing. 197 Why should philosophy be concerned with the past, since we will all live in the future? Many of our "loved ones" will be left in the future without us. So, we must speak to the future of life on the planet. 198 Nietzsche wrote a letter to Georg Brandes (January 4, 1889), he said, "After you have discovered me, it was no great feat to find me. The problem now is how to lose me---?" For Nietzsche and Heidegger, how can we ever lose them? They both have defined the "questions", so that we can not get "past" them. Heidegger is attempting to get "past" Nietzsche, to somehow surpass Nietzsche. Has Heidegger gotten us "past" Nietzsche? Have Nietzsche been "purified" by Heidegger? The purpose of Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche is the destruction of the history of ontology (Being and Time). Later he talked about purifying. But Heidegger is no follower of Nietzsche. We think about Heidegger, but Heidegger does not want us to become his followers. We should not get too close to the flame. It does burn. Nietzsche wrote a letter to Georg Brandes (January 4, 1889), he said, "After you have discovered me, it was no great feat to find me. The problem now is how to lose me---?" For Nietzsche and Heidegger, how can we ever lose them? They both have the defined the "questions", so that we can not get "pass" them. Heidegger is attempting to get "pass" Nietzsche, to some how surpass Nietzsche. Has Heidegger gotten us "pass" Nietzsche? Have Nietzsche been "purified" by Heidegger? The purpose of Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche is the destruction of the history of ontology (Being and Time). Later he talked about purifying. But Heidegger is no follower of Nietzsche. We think about Heidegger, but Heidegger does not want us to become his followers. We should not get too close to the flame. It does burn. 232 199 How do we determine value? Is this a foundational question that Heidegger would ask Nietzsche? Yes, but what is the answer? Nietzsche has a ways to go to give an answer to this question. Please note the "we" in the question. Perhaps the object determines for its own self the value it posseses. Or, is it rather the "we"? We know better. 200 Nietzsche said, "I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible." (Summer-Fall 1873 29[54] KSA 7, 651; KGW 3:4, 259). This is back to philosophers as attempters. Attempted the great and the impossible – Nietzsche drives the point home. Live under the volcano – Vesuvius. On August 24, A.D. 79, the Vesuvius volcano suddenly exploded and destroyed the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum – why not build more cities next to Vesuvius? Philosophical spirit's driving forward. 201 Can scholars lead the way? Answer: no, only philosophers can become leaders. Scholars can not lead to the overman. 202 Philosophers as philalethes. 203 Oh boy, Nietzsche blew the lid off when he said, "The "laughter-loving gods" is the highest epithet ever conferred on the world." (Spring-Summer 1875 5[105] KSA 8, KGW 4:1). Heidegger can only point the way on this one, since Nietzsche's playfulness does not speak, but rather leaps off of the page into our hearts. Nietzsche does this after his worldview has been dismantled. 204 What is the relationship between philosophers and language? Nietzsche said, "Words are the seducers of the philosophers; they wriggle in the nets of language". (Summer 1875 6[39] KSA 8, 113 KGW 4:1, 189). Heidegger wrote, "Language, whether spoken or held in silence, the primary and broadest humanization of beings." (Contributions to Philosophy: (From Enowning) GA 65, p510). Heidegger nails this one – man the belanguaged thing. To use language is to be humanized. 205 233 Heidegger said the opposition between subjective and objective history makes no sense at all. It is hard for the imagination to think Nietzsche is thinking of some objective history, but it is unlikely that Nietzsche escapes this opposition. Nietzsche is thoroughly trapped in the longstanding metaphysical opposition between Becoming and Being (Being and Becoming). Can we drop this opposition somewhere on the road? I think not. 206 Thinking against reason (Vernunft) or should we say "thinking" neither reason nor notreason; not caught in the distinction or the opposition between reason and not-reason (non-reason, anti-reason, disreason, or irreason). Is this aphorism reasonable? Will you use reason to make this decision? Answer: the answer is in the question. Are you only rational? Answer: must be more than just that. We have more links to the world than just reason. Or, the question reveals the questionableness of the answer. 207 Neither Nietzsche nor Heidegger is giving us a "report" on some philosophical problem or question. These are thinkers underway. 208 Nietzsche has an answer to the question he asked, "Why I am a Destiny?" (Ecce Homo). Did Heidegger ever ask the question? Heidegger had some sense of his destiny and he lived long enough to see part of his destiny unfolding. 209 Nietzsche stated his high point and his low point in one sentence. Nietzsche said, "Apart from the ascetic ideal, man, the human animal, had no meaning so far." (Genealogy of Morals, "Third Essay, What is the meaning of the Ascetic Ideals?" Section 28). Our high point was our ascetic ideals and, of course, our low point is that we can not get it together enough to "have" any "meaning" and we are only the "human animal". The only grain of hope is that perhaps we can give birth to the overman. Where is the power and the will? Answer: lacking, you say? 210 If there has been a decline and no progress, why there is not more chatter on this point? No improvers for us. 211 Danger and distress are the unhidden words that will open the opening and allow for the truth of Being (that Being of beings). 234 212 Can we become that Unity and oneness – henology is what we need?! 213 What is pure knowledge? Nietzsche said, "Pure knowledge has no drive." (Summer-Fall 1873 29[14] KSA 7, 631, KGW 3:4, 239). Where could we locate the "drive" as when we have a drive "for belief in truth"? 214 Necessity is destiny and predestination – moria (to speak Greek). Amor fati, again and again (thanks again and again). 215 How do we have a unique humanization process that follows into our essential nature? Perhaps – not. 216 On one hand, we have standpoints and worldviews and on the other hand we have standpointlessness and worldviewlessness or no standpoint and no worldview. Philosophy is not a process of creating a standpoint (or a view) or a worldview. Philosophy does not take facts or truths and build some kind of worldview for a peaceful world without suffering. Philosophy is not a way of teaching us how to live the good life and giving us "practical" knowledge. It does not tell how to invest in the stock market. Or, in other words – it has no external purpose. According to Heidegger, philosophy is fruitful and masterful knowing (rare inquiry). For example, do people play music to make music and to listen to it or do they make music to make money? Some people do philosophy and write books for money, but others do philosophy and write books for their own affirmations. Many university philosophers make money teaching liberal worldviews – is that still philosophy or just an epiphenomena of philosophy? 217 Heidegger is against epistemology and Nietzsche says, "the biggest fable of all is the fable of knowledge" (Will to Power, #555, 1885-1886). This appears to be strange next to the neo-Kantian domination of analytical philosophy. The drum beat of the apparent perceived limitation of knowledge as falsifiable only – ontic truth (Kant's project points toward ontological knowledge of the transcendental conditions for the possibility of experience. Is transcendental knowledge still part of Nietzsche's fable? Answer: 235 interestingly yes – just a fable of knowledge, how do we know that? What kind of knowledge is that? More questions less answers. "Knowledge" has left the building. 218 Eternal return of the same – how can this be true? Nothing returns the same. Shouldn't Nietzsche's thought be the eternal return of the totally unique? There are some experiences that seem to eternally return. Something or some power we call consciousness, the experience of the moment with a projection toward the future, a remembering of the past, a worlding, a body that does not get lost or misplaced; those all return when we wake up in the morning. The vast majority of our life is the eternal return of the totally unknown unique happening, which we call life. Life happens. But of course this is some kind of bad "eternal" since there is nothing "eternal". This concept of "eternal" was handed down like a bad sock is handed down. Just the old human imagination at work with our tough, old "grammar" doing the rest, both of which we need to keep an eye open for the attempts to confuse us. We even have a word for "chaos". We bundle up chaos in a conceptual word – we are really good (since we think we have dealt with or can deal with real chaos by having a word – chaos). 219 Nietzsche said clearly, "there exists neither "spirit" nor reason, nor thinking, nor consciousness, nor soul, nor will, nor truth: all are fictions that are of no use." (Will to Power, #480, March-June 1888). Talk about cutting the ground out from underneath philosophers and metaphysicians. The concept-mummies given to us from on high – dropped from the heavens. What is the truth status of his propositions? Nietzsche is saying that truth does not exist. Or, is Nietzsche making a more general claim against all of these metaphysical concepts, plus against all metaphysical concepts in general. Nietzsche is against how these metaphysical concepts are created and derived. Note: not given to us from the golden past as good solid concepts. 220 Nietzsche who came up with the concept of semi-theologians as the intermediaries between science and philosophy. What is the real connection between science and philosophy? Today – nothing. Philosophy is suppose to be some kind of ground and foundation for science, but those days are over and gone. 221 What is Nietzsche's hammer (tuning fork)? We want to use the will to power and do revaluation of all values, a new positing of values again and again (no, not eternally). 222 236 Heidegger thinks that nihilism is the inner logic of the history of western metaphysics. Nietzsche who was working on the preface to the Will to Power (November 1887 – March 1888) says, "What I related is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism." Which way are we going? Heidegger is going in reverse and Nietzsche is looking into the future, he calls it "the history of the next two centuries". Nietzsche has given us our greatest burden, our greatest choice, and our greatest weapon. 223 Nietzsche said, "the joy of the circle is itself the goal." (Will to Power, #1067, 1885). Teleology is thought of as subjective and not in the objective world (physical). For Nietzsche teleology is just another bad metaphysical concept (the great expression of the "concept-mummies") to reject. He shares his anti-teleological position with Spinoza. Nietzsche in an interesting letter to Overbeck (Sils Maria, July 30, 1881) compares himself to Spinoza, in five main points of Spinoza doctrine, Nietzsche recognized himself, "he (Spinoza) denies freedom of will, teleology, the moral world order, the unegoistic, and evil" (Portable Nietzsche, p. 92). Back to Nietzsche's circle, it is not a teleological goal, but something to aim for in non-metaphysical sense. Is there an aim and purpose for humanity? This is where philosophers and theologians both have been confused. The inner history of western thought has been attempt to decide on what the goal is for mankind. Plato's philosopher-kings? What a grandiose thought that was. 224 Are these aphorisms loaded for you the reader or me the writer? The process is the ring and circle. In the format of an essay is there a before and after in the essay and does that mean there really is a before and after. Where is the Heideggerian leap? 225 Can we talk about the overman how he/them should be – subjective aspects compared to how a flower should be in the objective world? 226 Nietzsche rejects Platonism, but he makes a very interesting remark, "Socrates, just to acknowledge it, stands so close to me, that I am almost continuously locked in struggle with him." (Summer 1875 6[3], KSA 8, 97, KGW 4:1, 180). Walter Kaufmann always thought about this special relationship between Nietzsche and Socrates. At some times it almost seems like Heidegger would say, he is continuously locked in struggle with Nietzsche, but I think it would be more accurate would be to say that Heidegger was locked in a struggle with the history of philosophy (as he reads it) and at times with himself. Nietzsche in Ecce Homo is in dialogue with himself and his place in history. Heidegger in the Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) is also in dialogue with himself, but somehow it is different; for example, not so self-absorbed. 237 227 Where do we put the "goal" inside the state or man? What does individualism mean today? How far have we come? This is almost unthinkable from the point of view of the team. The push is toward the "team" since we all have to work together. 228 Since Nietzsche great philosophers have finally found their historical sense. Heidegger certainly – but perhaps Karl Marx was overwhelmed by a historical sense, but not just understanding and reasoning with history – rather (can I say it? can I write it?) changing history. Not just Marx but as we are seeing perhaps Heidegger is trying to get us underway with changes (this may have been part of the issue of why he took up with National Socialism). 229 Metaphysicians have always polished those inherited concepts. What we say that Hegel did with Aristotle? Hegel was much closer to Aristotle than Nietzsche was in his transformation of Plato. Can we say it, Philosopher-kings as Plato's transformation to Nietzsche's overman? Nietzsche's favorite work in his youth was Plato's dialogue the Symposium. Ok, perhaps I pushed it too much. Great philosophers – Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger are "influenced" by earlier philosophers, but their uniqueness comes out. Think of the comparison Nietzsche did of himself with Spinoza (Letter to Overbeck, July 30, 1888). Of course, we have philosophers as scholars writings essays on the influence that Spinoza had on Nietzsche, but in this case we have Nietzsche's own understanding and yet, we also know that Nietzsche lied about how much he was reading. He said he was not reading, but in his letters and notebooks we found out that he was reading a lot during those periods. 230 Why our great philosophers are always concerned with the big picture – means with the goals and aims of this civilization? 231 To the whole notion of Being, Nietzsche opposites "it" with the thought of the eternal return of the same. Being is opposite to Becoming. Does this mean that the thought of the eternal return of the same is the same (identity) as Becoming? I think not. 232 238 Some days Heidegger was no longer reading German philosophers, it was the Greeks that provided nourishment for Heidegger on those days and there were many of those days in his life. 233 If I had any philosophical insight, I owe it to myself to work on the elucidation. But I may not be born posthumously – I may not be born at all. I seek no advantage – because there is none to gain. The process is the only thing to gain. Philosophy looks deep inside us and changes us in some radical way. 234 Why would certain civilizations create the ideal of a philosopher – and others never feel the distress, the calling, the conflict and the contradictions. What is "it" that produces great philosophers? What kind of soil and earth produces philosophers? 235 Can reason (as Reason) give us reasons for why reason should be paramount? Are philosophers the sign and symptom of the excessive decadence? 236 How many moral philosophers have any morality at all? You guessed it – no secrets there. 237 Is faith the opposite of methodology? If you throw out methodology, then the only thing left is faith. 238 Nietzsche is too wet with life to make any sense of the Kantian thing-in-itself. The bird of prey is in the genes. 239 Nietzsche said in one of the discarded drafts of the "Case of Wagner" written for Ecce Homo, he said, "I want nothing differently, not backward either – I was not permitted to want anything differently –Amor fati. (Ecce Homo, et. p. 343). Fate means necessity neither forward nor backwards; he did not want nor was he permitted to change the necessity and fate; his destiny was confirmed and fixed for good. Some people were put on this planet for a purpose, it is their destiny to do what they need to do -Nietzsche and 239 Heidegger how did they understand their own purpose? For Heidegger who hears the distress, then points to the few and rare, the decision, and then finally the crossing. 240 Nietzsche's destiny comes flowing out in his autobiographical work, Ecce Homo, where the last chapter is called, "Why I am Destiny". Nietzsche remarked his name will be associated with a "crisis without equal on earth". 241 Can we refute Nietzsche and Heidegger? Answer: no, I do not think that refutation is the right direction. Heidegger wants us to purify the history of philosophy. For Nietzsche, western philosophy is a history of an error (and not just a small error either). Refutation is not the point. What is the sharpest point? We have a critical dialogue and debate with the history of philosophy. The Hegelian point of standing on the shoulders of the great philosophers. We are still left with the question after Nietzsche and Heidegger: what is philosophy? What is the space to do philosophy? What is the task for philosophers after Nietzsche and Heidegger? 242 How close are we to ourselves? Since we do not know the essential nature of man, then how can we know who we are? We are somehow unknown to ourselves. Does this hurt? No, but it shows us part of our own dilemma. The ground is not solid. 243 Are we philosophers for life or against life? Are we weary of life and sick of this earth? Answer: just moods or philosophy. 244 Kant said the critical path only is still open. Nietzsche said he was looking for "bold and industrious comrades (I am still looking)." (Genealogy of Morals, Preface #7). Heidegger spent perhaps too much time on being a teacher, but he never was looking for a disciple like Husserl wanted to control Heidegger as a disciple. But that was not to happen – ever. 245 Nietzsche said something very interesting about "values are empirical and conditional." (Will to Power, #460 (March-June 1888). What are the highest values is a just a question of empirical evidence. There are strong words for the question of the ontological status of values that were once eternal or at least true for all times. Values are ontic, empirical, 240 and just conditional at the time and place. Is this simple or complex realism? Or, should we be speaking of only empirical realism? 246 What is the relationship between truth and freedom? The truth shall set you free – no, not really. 247 Heidegger apparently thinks that Nietzsche's Nachlass and published writings are equally important. Some have argued that the published writings should be given more emphasis. It will be interesting in the future when more of Heidegger's own Nachlass becomes available how much people will use this material and not his published writings. Heidegger in a way can say (at least so far) he had only three writing projects that were not lectures, essays, or seminars. Note: I am not saying 'book' projects. Those are: Being and Time, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, and Contributions to Philosophy: (From Enowning). (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) I want to thank Alfred Denker for a discussion of these issues. 248 Nietzsche is in our path and we need to knock him over and go through him, whereas the most dangerous avenue would be to try and go around him. Only a few American philosophers have tried to come to grips with Nietzsche and are still stuck in some ahistorical space. Completely in a lost space. 249 Why does Heidegger want to "elucidate" any of Nietzsche? Why not just a critical debate and confrontation with Nietzsche? The real purpose is to struggle with the confrontation and for us to become thinkers in the mist of the dialogue between these two great thinkers. We are not looking for arguments, refutations or proofs, but rather, a thoughtful dialogue over the matter and issues themselves. Next step is to do our own dialogue with Nietzsche --where we win. Did Heidegger win or lose? Are we only willing to back the winners? 250 We write about Heidegger and Nietzsche, but I asked you to do your own reading and thinking about Heidegger and Nietzsche by going directly to their texts and writings. I am not doing this so that will not have to read Heidegger or Nietzsche. I hope that my engagement with those two will help you in your own process, namely, to make you think more deeply about Heidegger and Nietzsche. 241 251 What is the difference between a new valuation and a revaluation of all values? Why not just the new valuation of any values we pick out? Value metaphysics is now a dead game, but it still has an impact today (the news broadcast has not made it to everyone yet). 252 Nietzsche has the concept of will in common with Kant and German idealism, plus Schopenhauer. But it is interesting how little Nietzsche has in common with the rest of German philosophy. Some critical remarks about Kant and Hegel, but overall Nietzsche is connected with the Greek world and his own world. Nietzsche's understanding and his misunderstanding of German philosophy had come through the bad optics of the no good windbag -Schopenhauer. Hegel used lens ground by Spinoza, so that he could see the God in everything and everywhere. 253 What happened? Are you afraid of getting into the water? The water is deep and cold, but friendly. Go ahead and get in. 254 What is the ontological status of a "wish"? Heidegger's Da-sein analysis shows itself with the simple structure of possibilities. If we were not in the world in terms of possibilities, then we would not be making wishes. Even something like a "wish" can show itself through Heidegger's analysis. Does this give us a contextualized notion of "wish" as such? 255 What would Nietzsche say of Heidegger's use of the concept of ripeness (German word is "Reife", GA 65 p410, et p. 288)? There is a strong connection in the Black Forest with apples. There are around Freiberg lovely apples and grapes. For Heidegger to use such an earthly expression like ripeness in the midst of his Contributions to Philosophy, shows us how far we have come from the early metaphysical language of the past. For Nietzsche this would be the meaning (Sinn) of the earth (Erde) and how us mortals reside within this meaning. 256 Heidegger sees himself as building a bridge to a new beginning. Nietzsche sees his destiny as a choice and breakpoint for humanity. The beginning (Anfang) is only thought by beyn historical thinking (seyngeschichtliches Denken) and inceptive thinking 242 (anfängliche Denken). Heidegger's thinking points beyond the metaphysical thinking of Nietzsche into a new realm. 257 Where does philosophy begin for Nietzsche and Heidegger? Western thought supposedly started with astonishment (thaumadzein), Eastern philosophy and Eastern religion started with suffering. Heidegger started with the meaning of the Being of beings. Nietzsche started with the Greeks and a reaction to Christianity. Is there more to their beginnings? Answer: yes, it is more complex, perhaps too complex for aphorism. There "it" is: I finally said it (were you waiting long?). After all there are limitations to the methodology of aphorisms. Know ourselves! 258 Heidegger has many different projects but one of his main projects is the overcoming of metaphysics – this point of Nietzsche at the end of metaphysics is a point that Heidegger draws many insight from. Nietzsche as the last metaphysician and the last thinker of western philosophy allows Heidegger to work on the new beginning (Anfang). 259 The relationship between time and Being is on Heidegger's mind when he is working on Nietzsche. Keep an eye out for these issues. 260 Heidegger, in his writings about Nietzsche's eternal return of the same, says, "a thought that pertains to life itself it must also be a historical decision – a crisis." (Nietzsche II, et p. 154). On one hand, Heidegger is talking about Nietzsche, but on the other hand, he is talking about "life itself". Heidegger sees himself as part of that "crisis". This is the summer semester of 1937. When do we know that "we" are in a "crisis"? Note: this especially odd for us being-in-the-middle at this historical time. 261 The thought of the eternal return of the same is the hammer, "the danger of dangers", the "thought of thoughts" – all this is to confront Europe with the final choice. This will lead to "a crisis without equal on earth." (Ecce Homo, 'Why I am Destiny", #1). Is the death of God for Heidegger the end of metaphysics; are these the crises without equal on earth? Look what happen to Russia and China under the influence of Marx. 262 243 Can we think of either the will to power or the thought of the eternal return of the same as the countermovement to nihilism? Does the overman live only after the end of nihilism? Nietzsche is telling us what to think, but not how to think. Nietzsche has a strand in his writings where he is developing a metaphysics by telling us what to think. But he also has very distinctive parts to his philosophy where he is telling us to think for ourselves. Are you waiting for the answers? Good luck – you will need lots of time (Unendlichkeit and Ewigkeit). 263 If Nietzsche's thought is a countermovement, to whom is it a countermovement? Is it Wagner, Kant, Hegel, or Socrates? Heidegger thinks Nietzsche is primarily against Platonism (note: not against Plato as such). On the other hand, to whom is Heidegger a countermovement to? Answer: at the least, my answer would be Hegel. But perhaps one can make a case for other philosophers. Heidegger in the 1930s seems to be in dialogue with Hölderlin, Nietzsche, Schelling, and Jünger. But his relationship with these thinkers is a lot more complex than just a simple countermovement. Heidegger says at one point that Schelling was a countermovement against Spinoza. Of course, many people would say that much of German Idealism was a countermovement to Kant. Hegel became the countermovement to many philosophers that came after him – Marx and clearly many others, including the young Nietzsche. 264 In Nietzsche's thought of the eternal return of the same (die ewige Wiederkehr des Gleichen) what can the "same" mean? Could the "same" be pointing toward the Being of beings? Being is the same (always) and it returning to us continuously. Schelling's metaphysical expressions are Being is eternal, unconditioned, independent of time, selfaffirming, and will. In other words, we can say the "constant presencing." Just Being as only beingness. 265 Nietzsche wanted to countermove and to invert Platonism in the same way Marx wanted to countermove and invert Hegel. Both were following a similar process. Nietzsche stayed within metaphysics, whereas Marx went off the deep end and slid out of philosophy all together. Why did Nietzsche reach all of the way back to Plato and Platonism? How did he see so much in the fall out from Plato? 266 Why would we want to share any of these thoughts? Why not? Thinking is way cool. We must become creators to begin the path to thinking. Thinking is not for every one, there are only a few that must take on the task. Sometimes the task looks deep into the philosopher. 244 267 Why a single guiding question? Are there top or foundational questions? Heidegger is ranking (values) questions. Some questions have a higher rank and are more valuable than less valuable questions. There is more value to ontological questions. Why is that? How do we get into ranking "questions"? Value metaphysics should not be a question. 268 If we are interrogating the Being of beings, then can we leave the question undetermined? How can the answer be determined, bounded, conditioned, mediated, and be ontic knowledge? Can this be represented as something objective to be reported? How do we have ears for this "question"? Back to the interrogative as the primary thought. Nietzsche said, "I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar." (Twilight of the Idols, "Reason in Philosophy" section #5). Our use of the interrogative is tied to our "faith in grammar". Wittgenstein apparently tried to get out of this dilemma in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. 269 Nietzsche's inversion (inner-version) of Platonism means we are just rattling around inside Platonism; we have not put Platonism behind us. Is there something in Nietzsche's philosophy that helps us toward leaving Platonism at the door? Is it amor fati? Or, can it be any of these re-worked and re-baked concepts that Nietzsche tosses out? Answer: no, not really. 270 Being is that self-clearing opening that lets beings unconceal themselves in the light of truth. This is not some abstract or formal Becoming, but it goes on continuously. 271 For Nietzsche it is an either/or for God and the world. In Twilight of the Idols one of his great works, he said, "We deny God, we deny the responsibility in God: only thereby do we redeem the world." ("The Four Great Errors", section #8). For Nietzsche this is a very strong opposition and Nietzsche is clearly on only one side – the world (Erde). Is there room for both? Heidegger seems to allow the possibility for being on the side of both, but without the eternal realm. 272 Faith is ruled out for Nietzsche; not a new faith is question here, but a new way of life (note: this is not a worldview). Perhaps we might say that Nietzsche is pushing a worldview. On the other hand, Heidegger this is not a new faith, not a new way of life, or a new worldview? Heidegger does want to prepare us for a crossing to a new 245 beginning. Is it time yet for this crossing? Heidegger wrote about this in the late 1930s, so what about our time, epoch, period, and historical time –now? 273 Aphorisms are contra to the essay and the book. An essay has a beginning, a body, and a conclusion as an end. The essay tells a story. The essay has some kind of structure (at least most essays in theory). Whereas a good aphorism is loaded and sprung on the innocent. Who are you? or is it just "me"? 274 On one side we have object and the other side in the brain we have electrical activity, which we call a representation of the object. The correspondence between the object and representation if it is correct, it is then called the truth. Heidegger attacks this "theory" in many of his writings. Nietzsche seems to have some problems with truth, but I think Heidegger has destroyed and purified the truth issue in a clear way. For Heidegger the correspondence theory of truth is one of his central issues, whereas with Nietzsche it is very much of a side issue. 275 Aphorisms are the golden nugget of thought. We need to gather these golden nuts for the long winter to come... 276 How much of the time do Heidegger and Nietzsche talk "about" the need for the transformation, and then, how much of the time are they in fact actually "doing" what they are pointing towards? Do we just want to "point" or do we want to "do"? Nietzsche talks about the meaning of the earth (Erde), but how much does he elucidate the actual and real meaning of the earth. If Nietzsche really is an atheist, then why is the God issue brought up again and again? Heidegger uses the expression thinking underway (Gedanken-gang) and also inceptual thinking (anfängliche Denken) and beyn historical thinking (seynsgeschichtliche Denken). Heidegger allows for the possibility of Da-Sein, Da-sein, Da-sein, Dasein, Da sein, --all of these are "about" "Da-sein". We are still waiting for more of Heidegger's own remarks about Being and Time that he wrote in the late 1930s. See GA 82 details as follows. 82 Zu eigenen Veröffentlichungen. According to GA-65 Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) this will include: Anmerkungen zu "Vom Wesen des Grundes" (1936), Eine Auseinandersetzung mit "Sein und Zeit" (1936), Laufende Anmerkungen zu "Sein und Zeit" (1935/1936). See also GA66. Heidegger on Heidegger. When this appears it is expected to widely read. Heidegger said about this project, "Auf diesen Entwurf geht alles zu und den Bereich dieser Besinnungen gehört auch die Eine Auseinandersetzung mit "Sein und Zeit". Diese 246 Vorarbeiten sind immer neue Anläufe, um die Grundstellung für die Frage nach der Wahrheit des Seyns zu finden." (GA 66 p.424). 277 Heidegger did not "finish" with Nietzsche in the 1930s. Heidegger was in dialogue with Nietzsche all of the time. Even in a lecture series from the 1951 and 1952, What is called Thinking, the first part of this lecture series is a dialogue with Nietzsche. Heidegger on the attack. 278 The will to power and the will of life is a "will that wills-to-go-beyond-itself" (Heidegger in Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) GA 65 364-365, etc. 255). This will to Will (as a noun) becomes a will to more and a will to power. Nietzsche said, "This world is the will to power – and nothing besides." (Will to Power, #1067, 1885). Nietzsche also said, "because it is living and because life simply is will to power". (Beyond Good and Evil, "What is Noble", #259). All life is a willing to power (growing and becoming predominant). Can we will in reverse? Answer: no. Again we have Nietzsche seemly giving us a choice and then giving us an ontological statement of the necessity of the world, which ends up being that there is no real choice. He gives it and then he takes it away. Of course, in the middle, it does not really matter because we have to sort out the truth. We have access to the world to see for ourselves what the truth is for us, so when Nietzsche gives it and then takes it away – this leads us to our own thought. The richness of the unthought comes through and makes us think. With the will to power, Nietzsche is trying to think through this conceptualization and this makes us think. Nietzsche's notebooks (Nachlass) give us a glimpse into his workshop and the experimentation of his thought. Nietzsche is not giving us a report on something called "will to power". Since we have so much from Nietzsche's workshop, we are overawed with so much forward and backward movement, so many paths and trails in the woods. This makes us so much closer to the process that we have too much to sort out. We do not have some final "position" for Nietzsche given to us. This makes the problem better and worse. It is better because it makes us think, it is worse because there is no easy way and perhaps no final "right" answer or solution to figuring out Nietzsche's philosophy. This is certainly the case with Nietzsche and his use of the expression "will to xxx". Yes, our thought is DENIAL of the will to Will. 279 Both Nietzsche and Heidegger have created an intimate work. Nietzsche's Ecce Homo is a very intimate autobiography. Heidegger's Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) is also an intimate work, but in a different direction. Heidegger is in some kind of dialogue with himself in this work, about his thinking and his own use of language. He footnotes himself throughout the text more than he mentions specific texts of other philosophers or 247 poets. But his writings in this volume are not like anything else published so far – there has been a radical break with his language in this text. 280 Heidegger said he wants "to dare to come to grips with Nietzsche as the one who is the nearest but to recognize that he is farthest removed from the question of Being." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) 176-177, et p 124, Section 88). This is selected out of a section that Heidegger calls "88. The "Historical" Lectures Belong to the Sphere of this Task". What does this mean? Heidegger recognized in so many ways that Nietzsche is close to him, especially on the issue of finitude which is a central starting point for both of them (of course, contra Hegel). On the other hand, Nietzsche has a great contempt for the matter of the Being of beings. Nietzsche said, "Being is an empty fiction" (Twilight of the Idols, "Reason in Philosophy", section #2). Heidegger's main point against Nietzsche is that he never saw the importance of the guiding question of the meaning of Being of beings. Nietzsche was greatly influenced by the Greeks, but some how he did not take up this question and when he makes reference to the Being of beings, then he is off-the-cuff critical of the nature of the Being of beings, for Nietzsche is just another way for philosophers to avoid the world. 281 When we have Nietzsche's image of man as a rope between beast and the overman; then we have Heidegger #89 "Crossing to the Other Beginning" (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) 176-177, et p 124). Heidegger says that this "crossing" has nothing in common with all of the –isms of philosopher, nor with anything like worldviews. Heidegger further makes a bold statement, "what is separated is so decidedly separated that no common area of differentiation can prevail at all." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) 176-177, et p. 124). Can Heidegger by a very general analogy consider "the Other Beginning" as something like Nietzsche's overman? Heidegger does not come up with the will to power or the thought of the eternal return of the same, but rather the truth of Seyn (Beyn of beings) as a question mark. 282 We are not refuting, rejecting, overcoming, nor proving Nietzsche or Heidegger wrong. Heidegger is not overcoming Nietzsche. No, our questioning and thinking move in a different direction. Watch your steps as this unfolds. 283 Heidegger recognized the importance of Platonism for the course of western philosophy through Nietzsche. Nietzsche sees the bigger picture of "Christianity as Platonism for the people". Heidegger understands the overcoming of metaphysics (as Platonism) in general as having the widest historical dimensions. We are still thinking it through. This is pure, raw -Heidegger. 248 284 Both Heidegger and Nietzsche have no use for epistemology. Why is that? 285 Heidegger thinks the most general approach to the standard viewpoints of philosophy is realism, idealism, skepticism, causalism, empiricism, and positivism. This can all be thrown out. Nietzsche's writings are full of his attacks of all sorts of –isms and his attacks on people with their associated –ism. Heidegger comes up with a much more generalized critique of the use of viewpoints in philosophy in general. Some of this I think follows Schelling's critiques of –isms. 286 Is distress a psychological feeling or a part of our human condition? Heidegger says, "this distress is that which drives man round among beings and brings him first of all in front of beings in the whole and into the mid-point of beings, thus brings man to himself – and thus in each case letting history begin or founder." (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) 45-46, et. p. 32). Not only is distress part of the human condition, but it is important for "letting history begin". Heidegger says the distress is driving man. Heidegger also strangely says, "the utmost distress: the distress of lack of distress". (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) 107, et p. 75). Heidegger is pointing out that this "distress" can go missing (not really part of the human condition) and this really worries Heidegger. Distress brings us in front of beings as a whole, this sounds like the Being of beings. So, why does distress drive us in front of Being? Does the lack of distress mean the same thing as Being has been forgotten? If we get to the mid-point and man comes to himself, then we will be letting history begin and this is only when man is driven by distress to the relationship of Being. Man is the opening and clearing (eventing) that allows beings to come into the clearing of Being. Our distress is from not realizing the importance of this question and process. 287 A countermovement is still linked to the matter or the –ism. Is realism a countermovement to idealism? Is Nietzsche a countermovement to Platonism? Is Plato a countermovement and counterexample to Platonism? With this I said it all. A countermovement is not an aufgehoben (Hegel) or essential transformation or a destruction and purification (Heidegger); no, I think it should be clear that this is not a countermovement. Is reason paired with the irrationalism? Is the supersensible somehow the opposite of the sensible? Heidegger is against being involved in countermovement, and yet, Nietzsche is stuck in so many countermovements (many that Heidegger does not notice). 249 288 Heidegger's true magnum opus is not Being and Time, but according to Heidegger's special friend (almost a collaborator for some of Heidegger's publications) Otto Pöggeler, the work "Contributions to Philosophy (Von Ereignis )" is his true major project. Heidegger calls this project "an attempt" (ein Versuch). This is the same expression that Nietzsche uses. This is a common method for the two of them. This is a common approach to philosophy. Certainly, this is contra Kant and Hegel most of all. Heidegger also calls it thinking underway (Gedanken-gang). Professor Dr. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann says that Being and Time is Grundwerk and the Beiträge is Hauptwerk. Alexander Schwan claims that the Beiträge is a transitional work. Of course, Heidegger says it no "werke"at all – that concept does not apply to his writings and his thinking pathways. 289 Nietzsche is at the end of the first beginning (erster Anfang) of western philosophy, Heidegger stands at the beginning of the second beginning. Heidegger is the mid-point at high noon. Of course, we are missing lots of the details as of 2004-2005. There are more writings awaiting publication in the wings that may bring out more details. Of course, we must ask the question why we need more details – as if mere details could clear up the problems or better yet, give some answers for the profound questions. 290 In the early 20the century, there was Oswald Spengler's (1880-1936) Decline of the West, Husserl's The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology, and Heidegger speaking of the "loss of the center". In all cases something is wrong, something is not right with the world, the world is out of joint; and hence we need philosophy to provide the "fix", the solution, the way for the fly to escape the bottle. Hegel thought out a detailed description of the world as a metaphysical system. Hegel has a large scale solution in his system. What are Nietzsche's and Heidegger's solutions or "fix" to our distress and "loss of the center"? How do we get the fly out of the bottle? What can we push to the fore-front of Heidegger's philosophy? 291 What is man's fate on earth? We can ask the question, but where would be our standpoint in time to answer that question. I do not think we can decide this at the local mall. 292 Heidegger points to Nietzsche's negative view of the multitude of nationalism. Although in certain sense Heidegger is a German national, but he senses the opening for the "great decisions" that involve and claim taking place as man's domination over the whole earth. 250 293 "The unthought is the greatest gift that thinking can bestow" (What is called thinking, Part 1, Lecture VII) according to Heidegger. This is because the unthought is what allows a dialogue to happen between two thinkers. Reading between two lines is that space for thinkers. Heidegger said the unthought in Kant is full of riches. We can track the thoughts of Nietzsche and Heidegger, but to actually reach the unthought in a Heideggerian way is much harder. This is not just re-peating what Heidegger said – no, we need to move way beyond that and force the issues of thought. 294 Can we conceive of man without time and temporality? I think not. This would be like Flatlanders – living in two dimensions. 295 Man is beBeing or enBeing. Or, we can say, beBeyn or enBeyn. 296 Nietzsche historically belongs to the period in which Being calls as the Will. Heidegger traces this history from Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, and Schopenhauer to Nietzsche's will to power (and to many others of Nietzsche's "will to xxx"). This connection between Being and Will according to Heidegger is not just a weary opinion of some philosophers about the nature of Being, but rather, the epoch of Being calling to these philosophers. Certainly more than words on the page. 297 Why do I use the method of the aphorism? Nietzsche said, "The most valuable insights are arrived at last; but the most valuable insights are methods. (Will to Power, #469, January-Fall 1888). Part of the issue of method comes out of the critique of the general notion of the "system". If the time for "system" is over and we can not create a metaphysical system, then what method should we use for philosophy? I think that the essay is partial assuming that the essay is a structured "system". Nietzsche had problems with different methodologies and he used the aphorism for some of his works. I think it is clear that Heidegger has a problem with the format of the "book" (or, "werke"), since there is a methodological problem in how a "book" is to be constructed. Not only is the aphorism a good approach based on methodological issues, but it is rather enjoyable to write aphorisms and the feeling of "power" is on the increase. I want to say in a single aphorism what Nietzsche and Heidegger ended up saying in a book, what Nietzsche and Heidegger did not say in all of their writings. Thus, I want to say something original and then gain an important foothold in the realm of thinking. Of course, Heidegger and Nietzsche and others have pushed me, but I hope I have climbed new mountains and have been cast upon a new, open sea. At the moment, there is no land in sight. 251 298 Nietzsche said, "Now I go alone, my disciples. You too go now, alone." (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, "On the Gift-Giving Virtue", Section 3). Nietzsche wants to tell us many things and his Zarathustra wants to teach us many things, but at some point we need to go on our own. Nietzsche goes on to say, "Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you. Verily, my brothers, with different eyes shall I then seek my lost ones; with a different love shall I then love you." Heidegger also quoted this passage. What is this different "love"? This is the "love" of being your own thinker. This means not just to call into question what Nietzsche told us, but also to think about how he approached problems, what methodology he used. Perhaps we will agree with Nietzsche on something, but the point is to come to our conclusion ourselves. If we agree or disagree, that is not the point; but that whatever we reach, we reach ourselves. It is our experience and our thinking. The mountain climbing example also points to this concept. We can have a guide help us in climbing a mountain, but in the end we have to do the climbing. The best example would be if we climb the mountain ourselves – solo (like 1980, August 20 Italy's Reinhold Messner makes first solo ascent of Mt. Everest). A few more lines and then at the end of the section, Nietzsche writes, "Dead are all gods: now we want the overman to live" – on that great noon, let this by our last will. Thus spoke Zarathustra." Therefore, Nietzsche still has things to say, he is still teaching us, he is still guiding us, and he is still showing us the bright light as the end of tunnel. Messner would not be our guide on the mountain, but he is showing us the way foreward. 299 Some part of us is in every reading of a text. And we should enjoy this and enjoy a thoughtful dialogue with a text. Why did Nietzsche and Heidegger write anything at all? Some of these texts may have been written with a 'reader' in mind, but other texts may have been written because philosophers need to work it out. Sometimes thoughts have their own way with a philosopher. The thoughts pull a philosopher into them. I think aphorism may help thinkers, since it is very close to how thoughts happen. In other words, I do not think that thoughts come along in a structured essay form. Aphorism is where the rubber meets the road, not where the car is going. 300 If we philosophers no longer have any eternal truths to give the "people" what can we give them? Skip the gift – maybe the goal is take something away from them! 301 What I know comes and goes, I think, perhaps I have lost the memory of what it was I was going to say and think. Memory is the foundation and the condition for our experiences. 252 302 How would we know the "rank" of all values? Is this in some huge spreadsheet, so that we know all of the "ranks"? I am not sure how this works. I think perhaps the only thing we use to know was the highest value (God, summum ens qua summum bonum) and one of the lowest values (man next to God). 303 I hope in these aphorisms I have made your problems more acute. Remember, I did not write these to make it easier. If your problems are acute, then perhaps you will know Heidegger's distress. Perhaps now the problems are more lucid, but not "solved". What kind of standards for thought is lucidity? I am at least clear on this one issue. 304 I want the "will" to become stronger. This sounds good, who would want to will to become weak and not be alive. Do we want more life or less life? Roll over and die and become infected with Russian fatalism. Nietzsche said in Ecce Homo, "Against it the invalid has only one great remedy-I call it Russian fatalism, that fatalism without revolt with which the Russian soldier, when a campaign becomes too strenuous, finally lies down in the snow. No longer to accept anything at all, to take anything, to take anything in-to cease reacting altogether." (Ecce Homo, "Why I Am So Wise" #section 6). Yes, we all feel like this and then rise and live again. 305 Somehow we can have the bridge which will lead us to the overman, but the idea of the overman can NOT be an ideal. This cannot be part of the improvers of mankind. No socialism can be seen. Mankind needs some aim and goal, but not as the nihilism of posting the new values in an eternal realm. God is dead, that does not mean that we replace the God with the overman. The spiritual values are gone. Nietzsche said, "Art is worth more than truth" (Will to Power, #853, Fall 1886). Does this mean that God is dead and we can replace him/her with ART? How simple minded is that! 306 The leading question (Leitfrage) for Heidegger is the meaning or the truth of the Being of beings. The leading question for Nietzsche is? Answer: perhaps nihilism, but this is not clear in Nietzsche; perhaps there are some other possibilities -death of God, the will to power, the thought of the eternal return of the same, the revaluation of all values, amor fati, or Dionysus versus the Crucified (Last sentence of Ecce Homo). For Heidegger of the late 1930s this is a time in transition (Zeitalter des Übergang). Heidegger sees himself at the point of transition (Übergang) and Nietzsche thinks of man as something that shall be surpassed ("Der Mensch ist Etwas, das überwunden widen soll." Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen, Prologue, Section 3). Heidegger speaks of 253 the overcoming (surpassing) of metaphysics; Nietzsche speaks of surpassing man ("wie wird Mensch überwunden?" Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen, Section 73). For Heidegger, "The time of re-building the essential shaping of beings according to the truth of be-ing has not yet arrived." "Die Zeit der Erbauung der Wesensgestalt des Seienden aus der Wahrheit des Seyns ist noch nicht gekommen". Does that mean we have to wait a long time? 307 In the beginning of the preface to Ecce Homo, Nietzsche said, "Overthrowing idols (my word for "ideals") – that comes closer to be part of my craft." Is there a problem when Nietzsche tried to get us make overman the goal of man. Nietzsche said in Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen in the Prologue section 4, "It is time for man to fix his goal" ("Es ist an der Zeit, dass der Mensch sich sein Ziel stecke"). Why must we want this lightning (Blitz) and frenzy (Wahnsinn) as a goal, why the overman at all? What is wrong with man and humanity as they are right now? I can understand that we need a human meaning (einen Menschen-Sinn) on earth, but why not just have man confront that meaning and relationship? So, back to the question why not man, why do we need an overman as distinct from man? Man remains as man without overman – why is that a problem for you? 308 Just push man to become man; even if that means to transform man into man's innermost essential nature as man. Become who we are! Know yourself! 309 The context of two of Nietzsche's remarks about amor fati is interesting. In the section in Ecce Homo on 'Why I Write Such Good Books", the subsection on "The Case of Wagner", it is here that Nietzsche writes, "I myself have never suffered from all this; what is necessary does not hurt me; amor fati is my inmost nature." In addition, Nietzsche said in one of the discarded drafts of "The Case of Wagner" written for Ecce Homo, he said, "I want nothing differently, not backward either – I was not permitted to want anything differently. –Amor fati. (Ecce Homo, et. p. 343). The third reference is the beginning of the Epilogue to Nietzsche Contra Wagner, where Nietzsche said, "As my inmost nature teaches me, whatever is necessary – as seen from the heights and in the sense of a great economy – is also the useful par excellence: one should not only bare it , one should love it. Amor fati: that is my inmost nature. And as for my long sickness, do I not owe it indescribably more than I owe to my health? I owe it a higher health – one which is made stronger by whatever does not kill it. I also owe my philosophy to it." (Portable Nietzsche, et p. 680). Why is it always that Nietzsche brings up the notion of amor fati in the context of Wagner? I think because for Nietzsche Wagner represents the artist. But Wagner was not the artist like Nietzsche – that is why Nietzsche came up with expression "Amor Fati". Life is not a sickness, but rather to affirm a higher health. One 254 has to love one's necessity of one's life as fate. This is a great "YES" to life. This is a "YES" to the human meaning of the earth. Nietzsche is not some underhanded cryptopessimist. Pessimism is thousands of feet below Nietzsche. For Heidegger, he understands Amor as love, and as will. In other words, Amor (as will) is understood on the subjective side. We should note: whereas fati or necessity as fati is more on the objective side of nature as having the necessity in the world. So, the expression amor fati is where the two come together: subjective and objective. This one way of reading it, but perhaps there are ways to read the amor fati that would drive us nuts. 310 Are aphorisms just a collection of ideas? Can we stack one aphorism after another and call it "good"? Are these aphorisms a Hegelian concept without the inner dialectic and negative to push it forward toward the absolute idea? Where do we find aphorisms on the street? Hegel was drawn to thinking as a final philosophical system, the absolute system, or the super system. 311 If we assume the methodology is correct, then we have assumed too much! 312 When Nietzsche said, "I want to teach men the sense or meaning (Sinn) of their existence" ("Ich will die Menschen den Sinn ihres Seins lehren" Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen, Prologue 7), he could have explained the meaning of the earth, death of God, the love of life, amor fati, etc. But he did not do that, because he added another clause to the sentence, "which is the overman" ("welcher ist der Übermensch"). Nietzsche can not leave well enough alone, he has to point to a beyond ideal or goal – namely, the overman. Why not take the overman out of Nietzsche's philosophy and leave it at that point. We have enough of Nietzsche without all of his special metaphysical concepts getting in the way. In other words, there is plenty of "living" in Nietzsche's philosophy, so that we can take away what is "dead" in Nietzsche's philosophy (namely, all of the high-minded metaphysical concepts). Can we have Nietzsche without the metaphysics (hold the metaphysics on our rush order please)? Perhaps he would have wanted it this way – anyway! 313 On the way to the store we meet Nietzsche on the road. We laughed at mankind but he could not pull the overman out of his hat. What does that mean? 314 255 Where can we get a foretaste of the overman? Answer: Julies Caesar with Christ's soul (see Will to Power, #983, 1884) or perhaps Napoleon with no soul at all. Are we just talking about exceptional men or is there something different? This is not in the philosophical realm of perfection; -no we do not need this. 315 Why does Nietzsche have a longing for the overman or anything? I think because Nietzsche has become Greek and anything that does not match up to his understanding of the Greek ideas and ideals is then attacked. Nietzsche sees what is wrong from being Greek. At the very end of Nietzsche Contra Wagner, Nietzsche said, "Those Greeks were superficial – out of profundity. And is not this precisely what we are again coming back to, we daredevils of the spirit who have climbed the highest and most dangerous peaks of present thought and looked around from up there – we who have looked down from there? Are we not, precisely in this respect, Greeks?" (The Portable Nietzsche, et. p. 682). Yes, this is Nietzsche! He became Greek and found what was wrong with our civilizations. How far have we come down from the heights of the Greeks? Must we do this again and again – ask the Greeks to invigorate and strengthen our civilizations? Back to the Greeks!! (This idea and ideal of the Greeks would be affirmed by Nietzsche and Heidegger. See also Will to Power, #419, 1885). Overman is one of those old Greeks come to us in modern times. 316 Why is philosophy so complicated? What is the truth and meaning of the Being of beings? Answer: temporality. Ok, there you have a question and the answer, so why is there more to it than that? It is interesting that many philosophical essays tell a story, but they are so dry and dull that they make lousy stories. Philosophy is under attack by the rhetoric people because of the way philosophy uses rhetorical devices without being up front about using them. Nietzsche and Heidegger both use the image of mountains. Kant often uses the analogy of building houses. Philosophers have a ways to go before they can use "writings" without getting captured. Nietzsche said, "I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar." (Twilight of the Idols, "Reason in Philosophy" section #5). The problem of "grammar" is a deep one that affects all philosophical projects. Nietzsche was a professor of philology at the age of 25, so perhaps he was more aware of this problem before many other philosophers. But philology has been on the move since 1869. Philosophers think that only other philosophers read their writings. Rhetoricians are starting to read their writings too. This attack against philosophy is gaining strength and is growing. We will see what happens to philosophy after this attack. Can philosophy be a dance or a song? Think of Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff students Werner Jaeger, Karl Reinhardt, Paul Friedlaender, and Wolfgang Schadewaldt. Heidegger rejected lots of the tradional philology, but he was also in the mist of the questions. 317 256 Nietzsche's ethic is not rule following. What does that mean for ethical theories? Nietzsche's ethical position, "I am the first immoralist: that makes me the annihilator par excellence." (Ecce Homo, 'Why I am a Destiny, section 3). This is an ethical theory that comes with an attack methodology. Nietzsche goes on in this section, "The selfovercoming of morality, out of truthfulness; the self-overcoming of the moralist, into his opposite-into me-that is what the name of Zarathustra means in my mouth." Nietzsche is beyond good and evil. Nietzsche, in general, attacks all morality as decadent and negating life. This is a realm of Nietzsche's philosophy that Heidegger does not really address. I think indirectly Heidegger's attack on the metaphysics of values has great ramification for any ethical theory. Attack the presuppositions – anther non-logical move with a strong philosophical bent. 318 Nietzsche said, "Napoleon, this synthesis of the inhuman and superhuman." (Genealogy of Morals, First Essay, section 16). Think of this: Napoleon and Caesar with Christ's soul. Does this sound like Hegel's theory of the great men in his philosophy of history? These are similar topics but with entirely different approaches. Nietzsche threw off some critical comments about Hegel, but I am not sure there is any reason to think that Nietzsche did any serious reading of Hegel. Many of these off-the-cuff remarks come through the old optics of Schopenhauer. Is Nietzsche's overman just a different way of talking about Hegel's great men in history? If this is 'true,' Nietzsche would not be happy. 319 When Nietzsche complains about being "misunderstood, misjudged, misidentified, slandered, misheard, and not heard" (The Gay Science, Book Five, section 371) would Heidegger say the same thing? Heidegger knew that mostly likely he would be at least "misunderstood" and the whole structure he tried to put into Being and Time was one attempt to be "clear". But very little was attempted by Heidegger in Contributions to Philosophy to make it "clear" for the reader. Although it is important to point out that Heidegger has the first part of the text called "Preview" that are (sections 1-49 or some 70 pages in the English translation). Hegel never like 'prefaces' or 'introductions' since they were really never part of the actual system or science of philosophy, but Heidegger wants to give us a 'preview' before we get going into the six unequal jointures or facets. Heidegger says, "Each of the six joinings of the jointure stands for itself, but only in order to make the essential onefold more pressing. In each of the six joinings the attempt is made always to say the same of the same, but in each case from within another essential domain of that which enowning names." (Contributions to Philosophy (Von Ereignis et. p. 57). In this passage Heidegger points out that the 'essential domain' is what differs in the attempt. But the structure itself is still difficult in the reading and interpretation of this text. Perhaps another re-reading would help on each problem. 320 257 „Aus einem einfachen Ruck des wesentlichen Denkens muss das Geschehen der Wahrheit des Seyns versetzt werden vom ersten Anfang in den anderen, damit im Zuspiel das ganz andere Lied des Seyns erklinge". Martin Heidegger. Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis). With this remark Heidegger says it all. 321 Positivism is anti-metaphysics, but positivism is still engaged in metaphysical thinking. Nietzsche had a period of positivism. 322 For Heidegger, Nietzsche is the nearest and yet the opening of the relationship between Da-sein and the Being of beings is Heidegger's view and certainly not Nietzsche. 323 Nietzsche and Heidegger against "logic". This is part of their critique of Reason in philosophy. 324 Does Nietzsche know the difference between the Being of beings and beingness? What is beingness for Heidegger and Nietzsche? Wrapped up in metaphysics. 325 What kind of transformation must our thinking undergo to grasp Heidegger's Nietzsche interpretation? Radical. 326 Heidegger sees Nietzsche as closest to tell the nature of truth, and yet part of his thinking is the farthest away from Heidegger, and Nietzsche is completely caught in metaphysics. Nietzsche as the last thinker of western philosophy who is both at the end of Platonism and at the bridge to the new beginning. Some part of the transition is shown in Nietzsche's thinking. 327 Which philosophers describe and tell us something (or give us a worldview) about the world or which ones push into making a "decision"? Heidegger contra philosophers. 328 258 How is Nietzsche engaged in onto-theology? Nietzsche's thesis on theology. Why does that sound funny on the surface? 329 Nietzsche seems to have nothing to do with the transcendental conditions for the possibility of experience (Kant) or fundamental foundations. Nietzsche had no sense of the transcendental turn as foundations. Nietzsche is against Kant's faculties, morality, and the things-in-itself. The rest of Kant was not even a question for Nietzsche. 330 For Nietzsche the essential nature of beings is becoming (see he is close to Heraclites) and our nature is simply thinking or the subject-object distinction is thinking and becoming. Can we say thinking and knowing or is that the same thing? 331 Kant had a few off-the-cuff remarks about Being; he did not seek questions and Beings. Nietzsche's remark about "Platonism for the people" shows how much philosophy still has some kind of "power" over the people. 332 The history of western philosophy (metaphysics) is the emergence of Nihilism. Platonism is the first beginning of western metaphysics. 333 Heidegger wants to go through "destruction" of Nietzsche's metaphysics to 'purify' it. How do we purify Nietzsche? It sounds obscene. 334 Nietzsche and Heidegger are both against journalists and philistines. 335 For Nietzsche anything that has being breathes. Catch the breath. 336 For Heidegger, Hölderlin is in ahead of us. Heidegger does not seem to touch Nietzsche's poetry. Why is that? 259 337 There seems to be four basic positions: Plato dominates Kant Hegel Nietzsche For Nietzsche this is a history of a gross error. Can we say that Nietzsche just simply rejects these errors or that Heidegger transformed them? 338 Are Nietzsche's critical remarks about different people and –isms; is this his way of creating a Nietzsche worldview? What is the Nietzsche worldview? Does the question lead to our understanding Nietzsche or a simple position to reject? We see Nietzsche's worldview and it does not agree with ours – hence reject it out of hand. 339 How can we see both Heidegger and Nietzsche in the same horizon of thinking? 340 Think about how far removed Nietzsche is from the unity of the categories. 341 Heidegger's rejection of "system" does not mean just a simple rejection of systematic thinking, but rather the movement from system and modernity toward Heidegger's new beginning. This will allow for a more secure interpretation. Heidegger is more "systematic" than Nietzsche and he does not want to plainly reject the concept of system, Heidegger is purifying not simple destructions. There is more to it than a "destructive" relationship. What is our relationship to Heidegger? 342 If the unexamined life is not worth living, then Heidegger is pointing us toward the "decision" which is getting close to being Heidegger's own philosophy (not just questions). Heidegger names this with the expression "truth of be-ing" (Seyn). 343 Nihilism is when the Being of beings is abandoned. For Nietzsche, Nihilism is when the goals are gone. Ideals are dead and gone – except somehow mankind needs a goal, namely, the overman. The goalessness is a goal? Can we use the expression "goalessnessing"? This is not to be taken psychologically or against having a career. The 260 overman as a goal seems too have been the strongest in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, after this work the overman seems to have faded in importance somewhat. This is the result of Nietzsche having a deeper sense of goal-positing and nihilism. The overman as a goal is an active nihilism that Nietzsche has to go through. Perhaps we still have to go through it too. 344 At the beginning of Being and Time Heidegger quotes the Sophist -that we have forgotten Being. Now Heidegger is saying this abandonment of Being is directly connected to Nihilism. David Krell's dissertation that Nietzsche is on every page of Being and Time seems to become true. Heidegger's respondse to Nihilism is Being and Time. "For manifestly you have long been aware of what you mean when you use the expression "Being". We, however, who used to think we understood it, have now become perplexed." Plato, Sophist 244a. This is quoted by Heidegger in the very beginning of Being and Time. We say this every morning and let it ring in our ears and listen for the songs of Being. Not only perplexed, but something has gone missing. 345 What would Nietzsche think of Heidegger's expression Ereignis? Vapor? or life? 346 Nietzsche was homeless (moved from place to place), but was he rootless? Was his unrootedness growing? Was Nietzsche uprooting mankind? Did Nietzsche have homesickness? If Nietzsche had said "homeward bound", then where would he be going? 347 Unsystematic is not arbitrary or chaotic. 348 The forgottenness of Being is opposite of mindfulness. 349 Heidegger says, "What remains for thinking is only the simplest saying of the simplest image in purest reticence. The future first thinker must be capable of this. (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) GA 65 pp. 71-73). What does this mean? Heidegger hit it on the head with this remark. But are we "capable of this"? That is a much harder question. Note: this is not a Kantian faculty. 261 350 Heidegger thinks that the nineteenth century is liberalism, industrialization, technicity, and summons positivism (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis), GA 65, 181-182). How would Nietzsche think of his own nineteenth century? 351 Nietzsche says two things in Beyond Good and Evil ("What is Noble" #259) "it will have to be an incarnate will to power, it will strive to grow, spread, seize, become predominant not from any morality or immorality but because it is living and because life simply is will to power." Later in the same paragraph, he says, "it belongs to the essence of what lives, as a basic organic function; it is a consequence of the will to power, which is after all the will of life". I think this means will to power is "life". Heidegger has always thought Nietzsche's concept of "life" as being preempted to Nietzsche. Does Nietzsche concept of "life" twist its way out of metaphysics and anti-metaphysics? Is there a glimmer to Heidegger's Da-sein? Seems a stretch. 352 I think that there is much Versuchung (temptation) among the Versucher (attempters or experimenters). These are the new and future philosophers that Nietzsche is calling for us. He does not name them overman but Versucher. Can we become these future philosophers? These extra "very free spirits". 353 What are these rational foundations for morality (Nietzsche) or metaphysics – (Heidegger)? Nietzsche said, "stiff seriousness" and "inspires laughter". (Beyond Good and Evil, "National History of Morals", Part 5, section 186). What is philosophy without rational foundation? Is that a sobering thought or the affirmation of life as it is? 354 Do we need an explanation and elucidations (Erläuterungen) of Heidegger on Nietzsche? Perhaps we should not even desire such a thing? Even these question marks know too much. The purpose and explanation is without reasons. 355 Is the content of Heidegger's writing alive? What we know now (2004-2005) of Heidegger's writings maybe eclipsed in the next ten years as more of his writing is published. Did Heidegger get "drunk with riddles" from Nietzsche? The intoxication and feast of thinking (Nietzsche), which leads to the "truth of Being" for Heidegger. 262 356 Is Heidegger a symptom of ascending or declining? Yes and no. 357 Philosophers as crypto-priests, Nietzsche says more than he knows. 358 Can we say unBeing me? Or, untime me? How would this work? Can we request a change in "our" ontological status from Da-Sein to unDa-Sein? 359 Nietzsche said, "the whole of Zarathustra maybe reckoned as music". (Ecce Homo, section on "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", section 1). Heidegger said, "The whole other song of Be-ing sounds in the playing-forth". (GA 65, p. 8-10). So what is the location of music and song in this interplay with philosophy? What do we hear now? Is this not music to your ears? Heidegger said, "damit im Zuspiel das ganz andere Lied des Seyns erklinge". 360 Nietzsche said, "that man was surrounded by fearful void – he did not know how to justify, to account for, to affirm himself; he suffered from the problem of his meaning." (Genealogy of Morals, Third essay 'What is the Meaning of Ascetic Ideals", section #28). The human animal suffered from this "meaning" problem. There is no meaning to life – where have we heard this before? Did life one time have meaning (Golden age) and now we have just recently "lost" it? Or, has life and humanity never had any meaning? Of course life has meaning, but perhaps no big and final goal or ultimate meaning to life. For philosophers meaning is in the process. If you have lost meaning, then you are six feet over the edge and deep in to "it". 361 A parable tells us life is merely an error. What you forgot when the quiz was and missed it? 362 When Nietzsche says, "What is necessary does not hurt me; amor fati is my inmost nature". (Ecce Homo, "The Case of Wagner"). What is the nature of life's "necessity"? Necessity is a contra concept to freedom. Fate takes away choice and freedom. Fate and destiny is given to us outside of our choice. How does the Greek concept of fate fit with Nietzsche's? I am my own fate and destiny. But where did my fate come from? Some men were put on the planet for a purpose. 263 363 Do we need a total war and total polemic against metaphysics? Or, is there a stronger path that leaves metaphysics done and outside? 364 Is the aphoristic methodology too isolating, too much alone, too little, too short for real work? Are aphorisms ready for prime time? Aphorisms run cold and hot, perhaps over cold and over hot, too cold and too hot, and too much of a punch. This means a sprint and not a marathon. Aphorisms on the attack, too much of attack and not enough on the creative building and thinking. Problems and issues – the tasks of self-reflective thinking. 365 You decide to reject my writings; do you want to refute my aphorism? Be my guest, since "refutation" is 6000 feet beneath mankind. Do you want proof? Even Aristotle knew when you needed proof and when you do not need proof (a clue for wisdom). Study Aristotle for 15 years before reading Nietzsche sounds like a good idea (Heidegger's idea). Of course, when you "read" Nietzsche something happens, since "reading" Nietzsche is not like "reading" newspaper. Reading Nietzsche will take something away from you. You will be lost to many who thought they knew who you were. Think what happen to Heidegger after he read Nietzsche! 366 Hegel and Heidegger have the same matter for thought, Being of beings; but Heidegger is closer to Nietzsche in many ways. Kant seems to be less and less over time in front of Heidegger's thinking, but certainly, Kant influenced the final writing of Being and Time in profound ways. Let Heidegger and Nietzsche speak to us today, let the dry old books bring forth their own song. 264 Martin Heidegger and Nietzsche's Overman: Aphorisms on the Attack 1 Why does Heidegger speak first of metaphysic riddles (Ratsel)? The word riddle is one of the Nietzsche's favorite, but Nietzsche would never think of having metaphysics have a riddle about anything. Metaphysics is at its high point with Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel; however, Hegel never has unknowns, but rather, absolutely knowing. Unraveling the riddle – first hint. 2 Man that knows the will to power and the eternal return of the same is the considered by Martin Heidegger to be overman. This combines the three key components of Nietzsche's philosophy. Can we have one without the other two? Heidegger would say – No. These are all interlinked. The overman is a finite mortal without a soul. Nietzsche (1844-1900) said, "Not mankind but overman is the goal!" (Will to Power, #1001, 1884). What is the Nietzsche's goal? At the very end of Will to Power, #866 (1881, 1888), Nietzsche said, "An aim? a new aim? – that is what humanity needs." Thus for Nietzsche man does not have a goal, but needs one. This is not an eternal goal of heaven or some kind of an immortal soul (Kant). Setting goals – active nihilism? 3 Nietzsche collapses some metaphysics distinctions in his statements about overman. 1) Overman is the meaning of the earth. 2) Overman shall (sei) be the meaning of the earth. Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Prologue Section 3) 4 In German, Nietzsche said, "Der Übermensch ist der Sinn der Erde. Euer Wille sage: der Übermensch sei der Sinn der Erde!" 5 So this is confused: The overman is, or shall, or will be, or might be the meaning of the earth. Nietzsche is not giving us a metaphysical description or an empirical statement. This is not anthropology. Nietzsche sometimes burdens us with conceptualyl overdetermining his concept. He creates new concepts. No more of those concept-mummies. 265 Nietzsche said, "What dawns on philosophers last of all: They must no longer accept concepts as a gift, nor merely purify and polish them, but first make and create them, present them and make them convincing." (Will to Power, 409, 1885). (see Twilight of the idols, section "Reason" in Philosophy"). What kind of a concept is Nietzsche giving us to express "overman"? Is this just a re-bake of his earlier "überhistorischen Menschen"? Answer: Nietzsche thinks that man is defined as the supra-historical man. 6 How does metaphysics think of the overman? How does representational thinking think of the overman? How does hermeneutical thinking think of the overman? Heidegger is just trying to point the way to a different kind of thought. For man thinking is reasoning. Philosophy might make it somewhat more complex and say that thinking is logical reasoning that can be falsified. Of course, for Heidegger and Nietzsche this would be silly. The overman does not become more rational than current man. Current man as a guardian of gate of truth will not let a single ontic truth go wrong. 7 Is overman simply man without God or the gods? Man without the supersensuous realm (Übersinnlichen), without metaphysics? This means reason is not guaranteed or given certainty by metaphysics. Reason still stands but without certainty. No longer an absolute knowledge possessed by reason (ratio). 8 The will to power or the will to will attempts to "command" the overman as the meaning of the earth, but no metaphysics, then no "command". 9 Does overman still love man? Does man love the overman? Like freedom does love shatter the system? Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Von Schelling (1775-1854) used freedom to shatter G.W.F. Hegel's Science of Logic and hence to deal a decisive and clear blow to metaphysics, but Schelling can only provide a bit of the push toward a transition and a new beginning beyond metaphysics. Can we say a "meta-metaphysics" that is no longer linked to a metaphysical position? Or are the question marks leading us to say "transoverman" or an "over-overman" or a "meta-overman"? Where do these concepts and expressions break down? The love of man points toward the overman as the goal. Why give man anything, better to take something away. 10 No laws needed only the transformation of man to overman. What laws would ever be needed after the transformation? The artist needs no laws to transform color or sound. 266 11 Dominance of the masters, dominance of the sea, dominance of space, and masters of all life on the planet – the overman appears. 12 The will of the will, will all willing to willingness. Nietzsche's will does not want the will to nothingness, but a will to beingness. Heidegger's non-will to Seyn (is this it?). 13 If the overman lives, then what? 14 Nietzsche's 1) Overman is a gift 2) Man shall be overcome 3) Overman is the sea, so that your great contempt can go under. 4) Overman is lightning. 5) Man needs to set a goal. 6) Man needs to give birth to a dancing star. 7) To create beyond yourselves. 8) Sun coming out of dark mountains. 15 These are all images that give us direction, but not an anthropology or a psychology of man that would lead to the new man – overman. Philosophical anthropology may tell us the nature of mankind (humanity), but most likely it would not tell us that man is just the seed for the overman. The image is the egg in the shell. 16 How can we be sure that the overman is not just a metaphysical ideal to shoot for? Part of Nietzsche's problem and dilemma is to escape the concept-mummies of metaphysics and rather to unleash the fury of a creative will to create. What declaration of Nietzsche's did Heidegger place at the beginning of his volume 1 on Nietzsche? Heidegger quoted Nietzsche, from The Antichrist (section 19, 1895), "Well-nigh two thousand years and not a single new God!" (Zwei Jahrtausende beinahe und nicht ein einziger neuer Gott! another translation "Two millennia almost and not a single new God!"). Why can we not give birth to a new God? What have we lost? Have we lost our strength? The last man, 267 the higher man, the modern man – these are all weaker forms. Did Heidegger answer the question? Where is the power? Before action you need the power. 17 What is the process of anthropomorphizing (Vermenschichung)? Is the overman just what we want in the new man, bigger, stronger, taller, a salary deal with a sports team. Or, is it a soldier or a worker. Who is the overman? One who knows nothing or all? One who conceives nothing or all? One who lives from one day to the next without rules? One who lives in the moment and cares nothing for the rest of life on the planet? One who loves whales and lets the rest of the planet suffer? What is the cost/benefit ratio on the overman? The image and perceptions of the overman may not lead us to the overman. 18 Anthropologism wants to know the subject as the subject as such. 19 The midday sun only makes sense on our planet. From all too human perspective. 20 The weak shall run the governments, but the overman shall be the conqueror. 21 Do we convert or invert the current mob-man for the overman to live? Or, is it wiser to leave the mobs alone and focus on the rare growth of the overman. Does the overman stop and smell the flowers or is the mountain too high for flowers? 22 Nietzsche's overman is contra Rousseau and the link between Nietzsche and Spinoza on solitude. Nihilism and Spinoza – think of that. 23 Is Nietzsche's overman version 1.0 the final state of humanity on the planet? Or, are there newer versions 2.0 and version 3.0 etc. waiting in the wings as Becoming pushes time in history? 24 268 The overman is with or without reason. Or, in crude talk is the overman a realist, a rationalist, irrelevant, or just a perspectivist. Possibly – an eternalist. No – he denies that. But he loves foundations. Well maybe not. 25 If we deny reason as the absolute position for thinking, it does not mean we go to animality, or understanding, or representational thinking as the paradigm of thinking. The object of thought determines the kind of thinking that is used. The method is the standard for the process. What is the counterpossibility to reason? Value thinking as metaphor seems to go in the opposite direction to reason. Overman is not the high point of reason. Overman leads us on to a new direction. 26 Is Nietzsche's overman a transcendental ideal? This is a question for Nietzschean philology, not for Nietzsche's philosophy. Ok. Inversion, reversion, transversion, postversion of humanization does that lead to the new human namely, the overman? Dehumanization leads to no human, but is that the overman or something less, perhaps the common herd animal. 27 Overman lives in Nihilism. Or, can overman overcome nihilism? Is this the point? Is overgrowing or overcoming nihilism – is that the problem? Or, is it our problem? 28 Can we stay silent long enough for a single thought to gain possession of us? Prosperity leads to rank, but how much rank can be pushed hard. 29 Is truth one or are there isolated truths? There are either many truths or a single truth (or both or none). How can truth break into parts? 30 If Nietzsche does not want to "improve" mankind, then where does the "overman" come into the picture? The ideal of "progress" or to "improve" humanity is just another form of nihilism. 31 Can we say that the overman is Immanuel Kant's "categorical imperative" gone wrong? 269 32 Overman follows the law of the inner moral order – Kantian. No, Nietzsche is contra Kantian morality. What is the call of conscience for Nietzsche and Heidegger? Is this the voice of God within? What if there is no voice, then what? Too many voices for one human. 33 No one knows the overman. The overman does not belong to the "one". 34 Does the overman give value to this world? Is that why without the overman there is no value to life? Life is valueless without the overman. Can we revalue or just devalue the world – how can we do either? The world has no value by itself. This is not the thing-initself. By translating the world the overman creates an all new value system. Heidegger sees value-philosophy as value metaphysics – he rejected this in the early 1920s. How can things (beings) not have any value? 35 The question: who is man? This can not be answered in principle (arche). This theorem is incomplete. Perhaps a poor design or a sacred design. 36 What is the value of values? What have I to do "values"! Is this a refutation and confirmation with values? No. Valuelessness and meaninglessness is overcome by the overman. 37 Am I deceiving myself or just confused? I was born too late. Mildly Confuzzled. 38 Is there an art to questioning or does it just flow from our genuine authentic thinking? How can questioning make a new way of thinking? Can we understand representational thinking or dialectical conceptual thinking via Hegel or just non-rational thinking? 39 Overman wills or wills nothing at all, but the will to Will is caught within metaphysics. Overman is a metaphysical construct. Heidegger's Da-Sein is the attempt to be outside of 270 the metaphysics realm. Note: this is not Dasein or DaSein, but rather Da-Sein (being in the open, there-Being open to the Being of beings). 40 What is the problem of value or values? Why did philosophers first take up the problem of truth instead of the issue of the values? 41 Will to power, will to create, will to lie, will to live, and will to will. What does this lead to as the creation of the overman's nature to will as such? Will of life. 42 What is wrong with humanity now – such that we need a replacement process with overman? How can humanity be wrong or right without a standard and a value? Perhaps it is moral decision and humanity, but how it is that humanity can be wrong. Survival values need only apply here on the planet. 43 Is the overman a bridge or a final state? Or is the overman a transition or a static state of humanity in the future (but some have a final ideal). Man is the rope between beast and the overman (Prologue section #4). Lightning is the overman (section #4). 44 What function and purpose does the overman play in Nietzsche's thinking? In addition, it seems like the concept become less important toward the later stages of Nietzsche's thinking. The thought of the eternal return of the same becomes more important. 45 The overman does not mean a politician or a three star general. What values system do CEOs of multinational corporations use to make decisions? Stock market says it all. 46 The more we will or unwill our need and desire for the overman, the less direction we move. Perhaps the revenge is our unwillingness to give up the willing and unwilling. 47 The mystery of humanity is a clue to the enigma and the puzzle. Let me give you the answer right now. 271 48 How can humans be cunning? What is their purpose and direction as they become cunning? 49 Hegel followed Heraclites but in a much different direction than Nietzsche. What does that say about change in the world? Heidegger has a much deeper interpretation of Heraclites – more than simply the flux in the world. 50 The overman is beyond good and evil. How does this work if there is no God, then no evil in the world. Or, is evil just part of the world no matter what. 51 With overman there is no morality. The immoralist speaks. 52 At the end of Twilight of the Idols, (1888, written five years after Thus Spoke Zarathustra) Nietzsche says, "I, the teacher of the eternal recurrence". No longer is Zarathustra the teacher. Now, Nietzsche discloses the final pronouncement, he is the teacher of the eternal recurrence. I embody the eternal return of the same (does this statement make sense?). 53 Let us remember, Nietzsche does not write a descriptive essay on the overman. The overman becomes an image and a goal. Although both Spinoza and Nietzsche both deny teleology, at least with Nietzsche he speaks of a goal. (Will To Power, #1001, 1884). Nietzsche said, "Not "mankind" but overman is the goal!" 54 Nietzsche says he is growing more Greek every day. Do the Greeks have a concept of the overman? Perhaps – Plato? Republic (philosopher king) or the Symposium (love). 55 Is the overman just a hero for the animal herd? Overman as a counterconcept for herd man. In Will to Power (#804, 1887), Nietzsche says, "herd man will expand the value feeling of the beautiful in the presence of difficult things. Then will the exceptional will 272 of overman." So, this means that the overman is not a new species or the next step in eugenics. This is perhaps Nietzsche's lowest level of the overman. The overman is just an exceptional man. Like a philosopher who should be a "rare plant" (Will to Power, #420, 1884), then the overman is an exempt and rare part of humanity. This sounds like a special individual that does not effect or speak to whole of humanity. Thus, perhaps only an extraordinary (we) world-view is a way of characterizing the overman. Heidegger thinks we are conceptualizing the dominion of the earth, and the overman is the essence of humanity in some sense. Perhaps Heidegger has an over-reading of Nietzsche. Would this remark bother Heidegger? Answer: no, I do not think so, if and only if, it makes us think. 56 Can we go alone and be different? Sure, but not everyone. We need the herd to preserve the species. For our continued "progress", Nietzsche's eagle compared to the sheep. 57 Shall we say the overman is symptomatology of the decline and weakness of humanity? The "will" has gone. No will, no power, hardly a seeking. Philosophers will be given all of this by the authority of other philosophers. Is this the wrong road and pathway? Only self-education is needed and for Nietzsche this is assumed. 58 Is the question about the essence of humanity a philosophical or a metaphysical question? I think a metaphysical question. 59 Where does historical thinking about the overman reside in history? Is this Nietzsche's dilemma? 60 Is the overman just incredibly wise? Is that the distinctive mark of the overman? This does not ring true. 61 Overman is the exuberance of all free spirits. What is the opposite and the reverse perspective from the overman? This is Nietzsche's counterpunch for what? The answer might be the herd or the Christian. 62 273 Nietzsche started as a bit of a pessimist, but that was all over in the first hour. Even when he was sick there was strength of spirit. Does that make Nietzsche a realist? I do not think so. Of course, you will not find many realists who want to be philosophers – where are the questions. Philosophers are drawn from the weaker crowd. 63 Nietzsche says the author of Zarathustra was a visionary. This is not a destiny, mysticism, or phenomena of human factual existence. There is an internal interesting connection between philosophical thinking and poetry, but also philosophy and a visionary. This kind of vision is not a worldview, but a way of language and thinking. Perhaps just a way of being. 64 What does Nietzsche mean by a "goal", a "destiny", an "aim", or a "task"? No teleology and no eschatology. There is some direction forward in time into the future, but no eternal goals can be posited. No eternal values. 65 Instead the overman why not just say, "amor fati" (love of fate) (The Gay Science, 246; Ecce Homo, Nietzsche contra Wagner, Will to Power, #1041). Overman has a love of fate. Fate, destiny, these are not Christian, but rather the Greek world. The herd-man does not have a fate or a destiny – hint for overman. Some people were put on earth for a purpose – their own fate. No chance, but necessity. 66 Overman or should we just say Napoleon. Another strange connection between Hegel and Nietzsche both had a profound reaction to Napoleon. For Nietzsche certainly not Christ or Jesus – perhaps some Greek, should we mention Thucydides, Democritus or Hippocrates. Certainly not Christian. 67 Overman helps us redeem the meaning of the world. Or, is there another world for overman? No. 68 What do we want man to be? What if there is a problem with man as he is? Why make any changes at all? 69 274 Overman as a saint – could either Nietzsche or Heidegger give any weight to this idea? No. Contra the whole idea and spiritual air of the saint. 70 Why is altruism so rare? Altruism is one of the traits of the overman. Where does this lead us? Psychologism returns. 71 If the position or view is an – ism, then it's wrong. Heideggerianism, so far not much of an issue among thinkers. Did Heidegger want to found a school of philosophey? Answer: I do not think so, but perhaps Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) was headed down that road. Heidegger does not take up question of Perspectivism. The question is realism. Is this a standpoint or the perspective of Heidegger or Nietzsche? No, I think not. Realism versus antirealism or just another relativism? Another non-issue: viewismlessness. Or, should it be viewlessnessing? 72 Is the overman a riddle for metaphysics or something more? What more? The overman can be the figure that shows us a path out of the metaphysical realm or out of the fog. 73 With the overman is reason left beyond or is it just one part of a complex being? Reason is not left behind; however, there is more to thinking than reason (not withstanding Kant). Modern man has been possessed by reason, natural science and technology – there is more to humanity and that touchs or hints of something beyond animal rationale. 74 The synthetic unity of apperceptions (Kant) is a long way to the portrait of Nietzsche's overman. Rene Descartes (1596-1650), Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr Von Leibniz (16461716, and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) are in the subjectivity of the modern usage. Hegel at least attempts to move through the subject/object relationship to an unmediated absolute. Sometimes Hegel expressed this as the subjective subject-object and objective subject-object relationship. The absolute spirit includes in the system design subjectivity and objectivity in the same self-unity. 75 Do you mind if I am born after I am read – perhaps never. There are worse fates that I can imagine. 275 76 Overman! Overman! Is there an echo in Zarathustra cave? Where are Zarathustra's animals now? Can we search for the animals – why do we still need them? Are the animals pulling Zarathustra down or up? The metaphor-ology. 77 Humanity minus the supersensuous realm is the overman. Can we be led down the path beyond humanity to the overman? Why go? 78 The last man hears the meaninglessnessing as it happens. Nietzsche always likes the ears and the nose, so that last man has big ears. Richard Wagner was Nietzsche's counterexample. Heidegger certainly felt himself to be contra to Hegel. 79 Heidegger reflects on preparatory thinking, but where does the overman fit. The overman does not think like the last man. What is the difference? 80 Through Heidegger -Nietzsche becomes alive for us. Let Nietzsche speak to us. 81 If humanity has no goals, the earth has become unchained from the sun. How can a whole planet become lost? We are already way out in space. What does it mean to be lost, since there is no up or down? 82 Can we have the countermovement to the overman that does not lead to the last man or the higher man? Answer: for the overman what is the value of the earth? The meaning (Sinn) of the earth is a finite value. 83 Why does Heidegger not make any use of Nietzsche's saying, "Beyond Good and Evil"? Overman lives beyond good and evil. The Will to power wills beyond morality. 84 276 Kant, Heidegger and Schelling all lead to the "will". Nietzsche picks it up from Arthur Schopenhauer (17881860) but where does this get transformed to the will to power – will to will, or is it just will as such? Man equals will. Where does non-willing will us? What is the countermovement to the will? Can non-willing escape the entanglement of willing? Heidegger says – No. 85 Man – beyond or beyond-man, yes the overman is a goal for humanity. Why do we need a goal? No ground, no why – a flower appears without a ground, without a reason. Modern man needs to stretch beyond reason and rationality – toward a goal (but not an end). 86 The overman is the only one who can handle the greatest burden of the most absolute thought (Schwergewicht) namely, the eternal return of the same (eternal sanction and seal). Again – why would Nietzsche use the expression of "eternal"? 87 Question: is this all there is? Answer: overman is to shoot for. But how is this not just another form of socialism (Nietzsche's and Heidegger's version)? A single teleology of culture and civilization is not just a political system. Telos – the end, the limit in the unlimited, perhaps more space than time. 88 Overman with or without lust and passion. Is this ideal either a Monk or a mountain dweller? Perhaps, overman is just the ultimate mountain climber. Perhaps this is a mountain climber who can act as a guide, but is not climbing the mountain for you. Philosophy can help us point the way toward the mountains but self-education is the only way to truly climb the mountain. Thus, Zarathustra is the guide, but overman is the one who summits. The image gives us a working analogy. Who is the coach? Where is the mountain? 89 Overman brings truth and beauty into a relationship with the Being of beings; but not in the supersensuous world. The former true world is the world of Platonism. Metaphysics once more, and once more, and once more – forever. 90 277 Overman is the opposite of the little last man – only after Platonism. Nietzsche said he created the overman at the same time as last man. 91 Overman waits in the darkness. Waiting or unwilling to come into light, and yet overman wants to come forward into the spot light. 92 At least for Nietzsche and Heidegger reason (ratio) does not rank at the high point. This does not mean irrationalism. Reason is not the final state. Again, this does not lead to a critique of pure reason or practical reason (Kant). Or, should we conceive of reason as the entelechy within the notion (Begriff) of the notion coming to be as the absolute idea, and as finally the absolute spirit (Hegel system's God). 93 Plato Platonism Nietzsche – reward of Platonism Contra – Platonism. Anti – Platonism. Last man. Platonism gone – no more "anti" or "contra" Platonism. Nietzsche's going down (untergehen) Overman born. New meaning or the final meaning of the earth. 94 Nietzsche, in the winter of 1882-1883, wrote a single line in his notebooks "Die Geburt der Übermenschen" or the birth of the overman. By the fall of 1883 the expression of "Übermenschen" is used a lot in the notebooks. It becomes central in the Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Nietzsche started writing this work in January of 1883. 95 What is the overman not according to Heidegger? The overman is not: 1) super dimensional 2) sheer caprice of law 3) titanic rage the rule 4) unbridled and degenerate imagination rushing headlong into the void 5) cannot find it through analysis of modern age 6) chief functionaries of the will's various organization forms 278 7) the transcendent ideal 8) blond beast 9) application of Nietzsche's practical philosophy 10) frenzy self-will 96 Heidegger is telling us that overman has been misinterpreted by his contemporaries and he wants to prepare the way for a real critical confrontation with Nietzsche's overman. 97 Heidegger points out decisively that the overman must be prepared to "assume dominion over the whole earth". Nietzsche was a good pan-European, but by pushing the idea of the whole earth, Heidegger brings the idea forward. Heidegger was a cultural German nationalist, but he had a very strong global sense for humanity and more importantly he understood how Being's epoch reaches all of us on earth. This is the Being of beings – historical character. The opening is what makes the possibility of Being of beings' relationship to man – and hence to the history of relationship. Does this mean that people in the jungles of Papua New Guinea understand what the history of the Being of beings means and the relationship to humanity? Yes and no. Yes, they are affected by the epoch of the history of Being of beings as technology one way or another. No, in as much as philosophical thinking is a bit removed from the jungles. Note this is an example, the people in the jungle might well understand given time and education. What is the nature of non-anthropological philosophical reflections on the essential nature of man, humanity, women, men, and mankind? Heidegger sees the end stages of metaphysics as philosophical anthropology. This topic was an area of contention between Heidegger and Husserl. If man is not the measure of all things (Protagoras), then is the Being of beings the measure of all things? Does that not sound right to you? 98 What does it mean that overman must be prepared to "assume dominion over the whole earth"? How has man become dominant over the planet? Let us assume that the dominion of the earth was not man's choice. We are using up the planet – witness the question of global warming and ozone holes. The death of whole species of animals that were once in the millions (buffalos) and had dominance over large parts of a continent, these numbers are now gone. How much oil is left on the planet? It seems like we are starting to see the limits of the planet as we use it up. Large scale issues are starting to affect the whole earth. Counterquestion: is man ready to deal with these large scale issues? Ready or not – this is part of the matter of deep ecology. Heidegger dialogue with Nietzsche and with him, Ernst Jünger (1895-1998) leads Heidegger to questions of man assuming dominion over the whole earth and of course to philosophical reflection concerning en-framing (Ge-Stell) and technology. The question of technology does concern all humans on the planet. Heidegger does not want to replace technology, but rather, to come to a deeper understanding of the historical epoch of the Being of beings. 279 Heidegger's question has to do with man's relationship to this opening. By extension, you can see how Heidegger might be interested in overman's relationship to this opening (that allows man to be in relationship to the Being of beings). Overman names that being who has a unique relationship to the Being of beings. This would be the possible high point of how Heidegger could see the overman. The low point would be that the overman is caught in philosophical anthropology as metaphysics and is still tied to the metaphysical notion of man as animal rationale. Man is not only that mix of animal and reason (ratio). 99 The overman is a Greek ideal that the German philosophers felt close to. Philosophers like Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Friedrich Hölderlin (poet, 1770-1843), Nietzsche, and Heidegger to name some of the great ones, were all close to the Greeks... 100 How can we have a break between the last man and the overman? Is this a break between them, some kind of an abyss or is it rather, that there is a bridge between the two. 101 Who is man? – animal rationale. Or, man as the caring being. Or, man as the belanguaged thing. Man as the tool maker. Man in relation to the divinities. Man as a maker of metaphysics. 102 Overman means over-reason too. Above-reason, beyond-reason, meta-reason, antireason is too strong; perhaps antirational is in the wrong direction. Overman in relationship to reason (ratio). Positions and counter-positions to the highest value of metaphysics, namely, the reason. Rationality was the high point for metaphysics and it is still front and center for many. This leaves the overman in the camp of metaphysical subjectivity. 103 Why did Nietzsche use the image of the overman and yet left many questions unanswered? I think some of what Nietzsche did was to use the overman as a metaphor. Perhaps Nietzsche was the first one to use metaphorology to drive us to self-education and to become self-attempters (Beyond Good and Evil, II, #42). Nietzsche did not give us a blueprint and was not just simply dealing with representational thinking -where he had an object in mind and just described it to us. Nietzsche had an idea that he was developing. For Nietzsche concepts are not just handed down from the past with all their 280 meanings fixed and given, but rather, you need to think through your concepts and purify them and dilute them with truth. 104 Nietzsche said, "Dead are all gods: now we will that overman lives..." Nietzsche emphasized that passage and wanted to make a strong point that the death of the gods leads to the overman living. We can interpret this as when the gods are dead, then metaphysics is dead, and hence, only after metaphysics will the overman live. Or, a simple way of stating this which seems partially correct, namely, that the overman occurs after you accept atheism. The overman is a nonbeliever. Is this the Christian-moral God? Is this the opening for the sacred in man's nature that does not seem to go away? In a draft of Ecce Homo which he did not publish, Nietzsche said, "since the old God is abolished, I am prepared to rule the world". Did Nietzsche want to create a new God for us? Perhaps this is a dancing god. In the Prologue to Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche said, "I say unto you: one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves". If you think of this as an image, we can say that the overman is the dancing star. 105 Is the overman simply the master of the earth? The overman is the master of the last man and man as we know them today. The overman is the master over the non-philosophical ones. The overman is some kind of superior philosopher. I think this is in the wrong direction. What is the counterconcept to the overman? Nietzsche would say it is the last man, but what would Heidegger think as the counterconcept to the overman? The overman commands man and has greater power than man. Man is weak next to the overman. 106 Can we think of the concept of the overman without Nietzsche? Based on many other philosophers who have taken the concept and ran with it, we can see that there is no end of possibilities. Heidegger thought of the overman within Nietzsche's philosophical horizon, so he linked the will-to-power and the thought of the eternal return of the same to the overman. At least in Heidegger, the relationship between the overman and nihilism is less clear. The other two fundamental concepts in Nietzsche that Heidegger does not bring into the dialogue are amor fati and Nietzsche's version of Dionysus. It is hard to bring Nietzsche's philosophy into a single whole, and yet, understand all of the parts and concepts. 107 What is the purpose of the history of mankind? Human history – does it have a beginning, a middle, and the end to the story? According to Nietzsche, Hegel said human history has to have an end to the story, an overall purpose to human history. The 281 eschatology of human history since for Hegel there is a purpose for why we are on earth. I think Nietzsche's eschatology leads only to the overman. In the Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche says, "The formula of my happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal." (Other places, he says, arrow, the task, new tracks). That goal is the overman. Nietzsche is pointing us toward the future and a goal; this is of course the overman. We should also consider the implications that this is pointing backward toward the Greek ideal. In Will to Power, #419 (1885), Nietzsche said, "...the only place in which one would want be at home: the Greek world". 108 What is the greatness in man? Can we say "the birth of the overman"? 109 In Will to Power, #766 (1886-1887), Nietzsche said that to place the goal in the herd is a great and profound mistake. The goal is the overman which is not a goal for the herd. The herd cannot know the highest rank and purpose of man as the bridge to the overman. But how great is man? In Will to Power, #90 (Jan.-Fall 1888), Nietzsche made two strong statements, "Mankind" does not advance, it does not even exist." And the second remark, "Man represents no progress over the animal." Obviously, Nietzsche does not have much interest in either mankind or man. Perhaps we do not exist. Can you hear that? What happen to the problem of other minds – not even a question. 110 The exceptional man gives us the feelings, emotions, sense of what is implicated in the concept of the overman. We can get the taste and smell of our need and the necessity for the goal – the overman. 111 Is the overman a different species? NO, I think that is trying to expand the concept in the world of the biological, this is like eugenics. No, this is wrong direction. 112 All of these "good" ideals – man, humanity, mankind, the progress of man, etc. this is not the right and true ideal. What is the 'true" goal for man? Answer: the overman! Nietzsche said in the Will to Power, #12 (1887-1888), "Existence has no goal or end; any comprehensive unity of the plurality of events is lacking." Almost to David Hume – strangely Nietzsche has some interesting notes about Hume, which appear to read that Hume was the origin of the eternal return of the same. 113 282 As man ripens like a grape, when he has a full sweetness, when the grapes are covered with snow and are extra sweet – then we have the birth of overman. The grape analogy as man becomes the overman (is this a process or a jump?). Or, should we use the analogy like the bee gathering honey. Rhetoric says it all or not at all. 114 What is the opposite of the overman for Nietzsche? Answer: the modern man, the good man, the Christian, the last man, the herd animal – somehow the herd man. In other words: sheep! What is the opposite of the overman for Heidegger? Answer: animal rationale. Plus, in a very general way Heidegger would be contra to: the metaphysical man, the subjective man, man as the measure of all things, man as will to life, the nihilistic negation of the former nature of man, man as rational, and man as the process of valuating. I am sure there are more ideas and definitions of overman out there lurking around. Part of the issue here is how the concept of the overman is unfolded. Is the "overman" merely a "concept"? 115 Reason begets will, which begets will to power, which begets will to life, which begets will to Will, which begets just the Will. For Nietzsche on the lower end the overman is just the Will. On the high end for Heidegger, the overman is part of the new destiny or fate (after the decision). Heidegger has given some clues for the new beginning (Anfang). Nietzsche is part of the way, but it is F. Hölderlin that is the major name associated with the new beginning for Heidegger. 116 The overman as a mountain, as Nietzsche said, "I am building a mountain range out of ever more sacred mountains" (Thus Spoke Zarathustra III, "On Old and New Tablets" section 19). Those who we call men are just at the foothills of the mountains, they can not climb higher only the overman can be alone with his solitude on the highest mountains. Reinhold Messner is the best example of overman. Could that be right? Well perhaps by way of analogy. Can we say the word "analogology"? This thinking is by way of analogology and metaphorology, hopefully this way of thinking might lead us forward. 117 In Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future (part I, #22), Nietzsche said, "Supposing that this is also only interpretation – and you will be eager enough to make this objection?-well, so much the better". Is this your objection to my writing? This is more than better for me-now perhaps you will have finally "gotten it". Do you get it now? Look behind you, the shadow is laughing. 118 283 Can we simply say that the overman is beyond good and evil? The last man may call the overman the devil (Ecce Homo). Perhaps the concept of the overman for Nietzsche is tied to his concept of the immoralist or the "you free spirits". One step beyond good and evil and one step beyond nihilism. 119 The overman is not the common man. 120 It is conceivable that man is exhausted and we cannot give birth to the overman. The decay is too strong. The weight and burden of being "modern man" is too much, we have collapsed under the pressure and stress of considering what is good for the greatest number (this heavy moral presumptuousness), instead of going for that greatest and highest form or type of man. Instead of going for broke and celebrating the highest forms. What Nietzsche called the herd animal, we today can call the "team". Do what is best for the "team". The analogy is team sports in business. Can we think out of the box and move beyond our "survival values"? 121 Is the overman the final philosopher, namely, the skeptical anti-realist? Can I be more positive for you or is this clear enough, that is, the retrograde notion of a supra-historical human is the the final stage of mankind or is it something else? 122 If there is either Being or Becoming for the overman, I think it must be for Nietzsche that which we call Becoming as the flux of everything that he would say Yes and confirm as the final seal for overman. 123 If we lose all meaning to life, then do we need the overman to restore meaning to life in general? The eternal values would be gone and we would be left with the meaning of the earth. The supreme values are of the earth. The ideas of valuelessness and meaninglessness are only a transition to some higher stage (Will to Power, #7 and #11). But is this with or without the overman? Remember for Nietzsche the higher stage or the higher anything is still part of the meaning of the earth (no otherworldlyness or afterworldlyness, nothing that extends into the suprasensory, no great "beyond"). 124 I think the forms of nihilism may be more directly linked to the concept of the overman for Heidegger's thinking than in Nietzsche. In the Will to Power, #28 (Spring-Fall 1887), 284 Nietzsche said, "Attempts to escape Nihilism without revaluating our values so far: they produce the opposite, make the problem more acute." If we push too hard for the overman (will to the overman), then does the last man stay with us too long. The forms of nihilism are a complex issue for Heidegger, so it is difficult to see how the forms of nihilism are related to the overman. Does the overman speak metaphysically? Is the overman that bridge? Or, is the subject of the overman the absolute subjectivity of the will to power, so these are tied together at the end of metaphysics with nihilism being the inner logic of metaphysics. Nietzsche's idea of the overman may bring us up to the edge and the breakpoint, which may bring us out of metaphysics. The image (analogy) of the overman is double-edged for us. Is the overman the consummation, culmination, and completion of man? 125 In a preface to the Will to Power (1887-1888) we have Nietzsche speaking; he uses the expression at the beginning of the paragraph, "He that speaks here" and then he goes on to give us his position vis-a-vis nihilism, he says, "as the first prefect nihilist of Europe who, however, has even now lived through the whole of nihilism, to the end, leaving it behind, outside himself." I think this to be a very powerful statement from Nietzsche, because not only has he lived through nihilism, but he has left it outside of himself. One conclusion we can draw from this statement is that the overman who lives after nihilism is at an end. Nihilism is for Nietzsche only a negative concept. Do we just want to come up with new eternal values and ideals to place in the metaphysical (eternal) world? Answer: no. Incomplete nihilism is to replace of one set of values with a new set of values. God is dead, but for example, socialism now lives. Complete nihilism is changing the very nature of the way of all value positing. The overman lives after the highest values have de-valued themselves, the revaluation of all values, the new valuation within the "eternal" world, and finally a new valuation and a new positing within the meaning of the earth. 126 In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Zarathustra is the teacher who advocated a number of things, but is it clear that when he says in the Prologue (section 3), "I teach you the overman"? Who is the "you"? The subtitle of the book says, "A book for everyone and no one". He is speaking to one and all. Zarathustra was the teacher of the "most abysmal thought", namely, the eternal return of the same (in the section on the "Convalescent"). In Ecce Homo, Nietzsche is talking about his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he says at the beginning of the section, "The fundamental conception of this work, the idea of the eternal recurrence..." Nietzsche gives the first mention of the will to power in the Thus Spoke Zarathustra section "On the thousand and one goals", but it plays a very minor role in Nietzsche's project, but Heidegger places more emphasis on this in connection with the overman. The overman and the idea of eternal return of the same belong together. The will to power relationship to the overman is less clear in terms of supporting a straight interpretation of some text. How are the ideas related? How are they related in reality? Or, are they just some ideas? No real relationship. 285 127 Nietzsche's last major work was going to be The Will to Power: attempt as a revaluation of all values. This was perhaps mentioned in a letter to his sister in 1886. The idea of the will to power starts to take centerstage at least for awhile. By the time we get to Ecce Homo: How one becomes what one is which was written in 1888, it seems that the overman has dropped into the background for Nietzsche. There are only a few remarks and nothing of the importance of the overman for Nietzsche. We can say that the conceptualization of the overman for Nietzsche was finished. What he knew, he had told us by then. 128 There are three texts here: the first one is Nietzsche published and unpublished writings, the second is Heidegger's writings, and third is the text of life. If this written text which is in front of you now is too long, then you must consider what Nietzsche said in a draft to Ecce Homo, he said, "I am brief; my readers themselves must become long and comprehensive in order to bring up and together all that I have thought, and thought deep down." Both Heidegger and I are Nietzsche's readers that have become too long. Each step is a step beyond... and off of this page. 129 Why do we need overman? I am just fine. Man is fine "as is". What Humanity does not meet your highest requirements? There is something wrong with mankind. Just leave mankind in its current state. Perhaps the idea of the overman will harm mankind. Nietzsche thought the idea of the overman as a gift from Zarathustra. The herd is becoming more mediocre, but with billions of people on earth at least we can say it survives. The greatest zenith of mankind may have already been reached. The wave is on the down hill side. Dare we mention the great and exceptional man who strongly moved both Hegel and Nietzsche – Napoleon? Does this surprise you? 130 Nietzsche said at the beginning of the Thus Spoke Zarathustra, "Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?" What? Now we have to do some work. I thought Nietzsche was more interested in the gay science (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft ("la gaya scienza"). So, we need to develop a ten-point plan for overcoming man. The last man invented happiness and is contemptible. Back to the question: what have you done to overcome him? I do not think it is the time for a T.V. interview, but rather, more difficult work, the feast and frenzy of abstract thinking. 131 286 The concept of overman needs to be polished and purified for us to bring it forth. The concept of Modern man may not be so clear either. 132 If Being (Sein) is an empty fiction for Nietzsche, then how can Heidegger point to this special relationship of Being for the overman? I think Nietzsche would have listened carefully. 133 What is the context and place for a critical debate with Nietzsche and Heidegger over the idea of the overman? We read Nietzsche and we read Heidegger, but there is more just an interpretation of some texts, since reality talks through them to us. We keep them alive to hear them today. 134 During the birth of the overman we feel the power and strength within us (Will to Power, #1060, 1884). How can man create the overman through either will to power or the eternal return of the same? The essence of human being is undetermined and for us a riddle (Ratsel). We can muse and reflect on the essential nature of mankind, but the answer is unknown and hopefully we will never know, but we must always be in search of and attempt to unriddle our ultimate and unsolvable riddle. In our search we may reach a deeper understanding and deeper conceptualization as we are underway toward ourselves. The purpose and goal of mankind will be written on the epitaph of mankind. There is a hint and fragrance that human being maybe more than our animality. What more can there be? 135 How is the overman anything more than just an anthropological concept? Is Nietzsche just doing philosophical anthropology? Or, is this perhaps a special kind of psychology? Both Freud and Jung learned a great deal from Nietzsche. Thought in terms of metaphysics is the last stage of absolute consummated subjectivity (subiectum). Is the overman merely the most human of all humans, like the title of one of Nietzsche's books – Human, All-to-Human? Human beings humanized to the point of being the most human (less animal rationale, less metaphysical man). This is all contra to the herd animal. Need we say more? We can finally say -- 'everything is merely subjective' (Will to Power, #1059, 1884). What have we losted in modern world? Objectivity? 136 What is the counterposition to humanization? Answer: dehumanizing, non-humanizing, a-humanizing, dishumanization, or humanizationlessness. 287 137 Although we can point to the overman, the exact nature of the overman is still in the process of becoming. Just like the essential nature of man is still open, the essential nature of the overman is open as well. There are clues and glimmers into the nature of the overman, but between Nietzsche and Heidegger we are still opening up the question mark of the overman. Overman as question mark. 138 Can the overman be both all powerful and all wise at the same time? Answer: yes, of course. Think of the obvious connections to Plato's Republic, philosopher kings. 139 Surpassing man. Is it Darwin that makes Nietzsche thinks of man as animal? 140 The greatness in human beings is amor fati (Ecce Homo, Part II, section 10). The overman shows us amor fati. 141 If you disagree with mediocrity and the common, herd animal, only then are you now ready for the birth of the overman. 142 Nietzsche said, "No, the goal of humanity cannot lie in the end but only in its highest Exemplaren (examples)". (Untimely Meditations [Second], "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life," 1874, section IX). (The title is some times translated as Unfashionable observations). In German, Nietzsche wrote, "Nein, das Ziel der Menschheit kann nicht am Ende liegen, sondern nur in ihren höchsten Exemplaren." (Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen. Zweites Stück. Vom Nutzen und Nachtheil der Historie für das Leben, section IX). So, we are not waiting on history for the overman to appear, but rather, we are waiting on the right conditions and right events for the overman to appear on earth or perhaps the overman has already appeared. History may have our examples if we look for them. Contra Marx – that is for certain. 143 Auseinandersetzung with Nietzsche and Heidegger on the overman. Rip into to it and do not give up. 288 144 The sensuous means, for Nietzsche that the Dionysus element is the essential nature of the meaning of the earth. At the end of Ecce Homo, Nietzsche said, "Have I been understood? – Dionysus versus the Crucified." We can rephrase this along the lines of the Platonic hierarchy, the sensuous versus supersensuous. Although Heidegger is quick to point out even in the counterreversal of Platonism, it is still a reversal of a metaphysical (Platonism) distinction. The supersensuous is the counterconcept and the negation of life and it indicates to a meaning of the earth, namely, the earth as the home of mortals. Nietzsche said, "To sin against the earth is now the most dreadful thing, and to esteem the entrails of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth." (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 'Zarathustra Prologue', section 3). 145 The self-overcoming and surpassing of man is the overman and the overman shall become the greatest reality and truth. 146 Nietzsche said about Thus Spoke Zarathustra, "The body is inspired; let us keep the "soul" out of it.' (Ecce Homo). The "soul" has started the process of decomposition (Verwesung) and is no longer alive and is decaying (verwesen). So, now is the time for the return of the "body". I would say it is time for mortals on earth again. Plus, we have Nietzsche's curse (The Antichrist) against Christianity and the concept of the soul. Nietzsche as a physician cuts the soul out of the body. As Nietzsche once said, "you despisers of the body" (Verächter des Leibes), you do not go to the bridges of the overman. The body has an aspect of animality, but for Nietzsche the body is man without a soul. One can not lose the body and the body is beyond the distinction of res cogitans and res extensa, that is, the body is a being in the world. 147 There are various kinds of thinking involved in Heidegger's elucidations of Nietzsche: 1) valuative thinking 2) metaphysical thinking 3) representational thinking 4) preparatory thinking (Heidegger points to this way of thinking) 5) or, recollective thinking (Andenken) 148 These "kinds of thinking" mean a methodology, scope, limitation, boundaries, and a ranking. Some kinds of thinking are superseded. The sense is that valuative, metaphysical, and representational thinking is negative and that Heidegger here speaks of preparatory thinking (das anfängliche Denken). In Heidegger's second major work the 289 Contributions to Philosophy (from Ereignis); Heidegger has a whole range of "kinds of thinking": 1) inceptual thinking (das anfängliche Denken) 2) thinking that is underway (Gedanken-gang) 3) Being-historical thinking (seyngeschichtliches Denken) 4) enthinking of Being (Erdenken des Seyns) 5) enthinking (Er-denken), bethinking 6) ponder (Überdenken) 7) ponder (bedenken) 149 Nietzsche's valuative thinking and value-metaphysics are a leading issue for Heidegger's critique. The value of values, the ranking, the revaluation of all values, nihilism as the highest values devaluing themselves, positing of new values, principal of all valuepositing, hierarchy of values, all of these expressions of Nietzsche's are connected to one of the most crucial concept in Nietzsche's philosophy, namely, the will to power. In the Will to Power (#588, 1883-1886), Nietzsche said, "The question of values is more fundamental than the question of certainty: the latter becomes serious only by presupposing that the value question has already been answered." The question of certainty echoes and re-echoes with Descartes and Hegel. Of course Nietzsche would rather have heaps of beautiful possibilities than a handful of any "certainties". The correspondence theory of truth (Descartes and Hegel again) assume the certainty between the idea and the thing in the world or the self-representation (noein) in the mind to correspond with the object out there in the world. Values are on the side of subjectivity. Objects are assigned a value. Truth can be thought metaphysically as certitude. 150 Can our nostalgia bring us home to a time rather than a space? This would be homesickness for the times of the Greeks before Christianity and the need for our soul to ascend to heaven, before sin, before we had lost our mortal way. This homesickness would allow for the Greek ideal of mortals on earth linked to be Nietzsche's overman. We become who we are in a golden time. In other words, the utopia of Plato's Republic or is this individual (the overman) in a modern utopia what Nietzsche is hinting at with his idea of the overman? Perhaps the overman only lives in a utopia. Would that utopia appear to be more Greek or more the modern man? I think both Nietzsche and Heidegger would appear to have some significant Greek aspects and ideals. Certainly, Nietzsche would be more noticeably and Heidegger would have a Greek tendency in his four-fold (das Geviert). But nevertheless, Heidegger would not have the concept of the overman. 151 If you see the overman on the road, then kill him. If you see the Buddha on the road, do not laugh. The overman is not the devil, but we are not yet ready for him. 290 152 If the overman is a hope, then it is question of chance and probability that the overman is coming. I think there is a 20% chance that the overman is coming in the next hundred years. What kind of thinking is this? Why does it sound so strange to our ears? 153 Zarathustra teaches and advocates two ideas at the same time, namely, the overman and the eternal return of the same. Zarathustra animals say, "you are the teacher of the eternal return – that is now your destiny" (section "The Convalescent"). One simple way of thinking out the issue of the overman is to say that the overman is the one who can embrace and affirm the thought of the eternal return of the same. 154 Nietzsche said, "I come again eternally to this identical and self-same life, in its greatest and its smallest, to teach again the eternal return of all things" (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Section 57). "Ich komme ewig wieder zu diesem gleichen und selbigen Leben, im Grössten und auch im Kleinsten, dass ich wieder aller Dinge ewige Wiederkunft lehre." (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Section 57). Can we say "yes"? 155 The necessity of the eternal return of the same is the breaking point for Nietzsche, so it is only through affirming this as the greatest burden will you begin the birth of the overman. At end of the aphorism #341 of The Gay Science, Nietzsche says, "Or, how beneficent would you have to become toward yourself and toward life to demand nothing more than this eternal sanction and seal?" The overman as the over-humanization of being human and then we would "demand nothing more than this eternal sanction and seal" of our human, all-to-human existence as mortals on earth. Right after the section where Nietzsche says the "overman shall be the meaning of the earth!" he continues, "I beseech you my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes!" Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go." (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 'Zarathustra Prologue', section 3). Therefore, the overman is one who remains faithful to the earth and does not believe in otherworldly (metaphysical suprasensory world, Platonic ideals and ideas, heaven) hopes. 156 The meaning and implication of the overman to the earth (Erde) is a very key point. Nietzsche's concepts of the earth show that Nietzsche is trying to overturn and overcome (Unkehrung, overturning) Plato's ideas that are above the world in the suprasensory (Übersinnlichen). Heidegger wants to point out that these ideas have died and are decomposing (Verwesung). However, the earth is solid and is where we live. On one 291 hand, the overman is the meaning of the earth, this is the ontological point; and then Nietzsche says the overman "shall (sei)" be the meaning of the earth, this is not the moral point but rather a command, and it shall be! What would be the counterconcept to the meaning of the earth? The overman shall be the meaning of heaven. The Christian concept of eschatology would not be the earth, but heaven. Nietzsche wants nothing to do with heaven. 157 Zarathustra is a teacher and Nietzsche is putting this right up front in the Prologue that the overman is one of the main things that the overman is teaching us. Who is he teaching? Are we the last man? Or, are we just human beings? The title of the book gives us a clue, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A book for everyone and no one. Who are they people and what is the relationships for us, who are up to our necks in philosophical B.S.? 158 Looking back from the point of view of the overman, Nietzsche tells us that man will be a "laughing stock (Gelächter)" or just a "shame (Scham)". This is looking back from the future after the overman has appeared. 159 The overman is the earth, not stars (Sternen) or seeking the ground (Grund). Sacrifice (opfern, Opfer) man to the earth. 160 Now it is time for man to set his goal (Ziel). Nietzsche wants this as the highest hope (höchsten Hoffnung) for man. Note that this is not an ontological or a straight claim that man will become the overman, rather, that this Nietzsche's hope. 161 The meaning of Seins taught by Zarathustra is the overman. Overman as Lightning out a dark cloud. (German: Ich will die Menschen den Sinn ihres Seins lehren: welcher ist der Übermensch, der Blitz aus der dunklen Wolke Mensch). 162 Where the state ceases (aufhört), there is the rainbow and bridges to the overman. Why the attack on the state by Nietzsche? This almost sounds like Karl Marx, the state shall whither away. Or, a thinker and anarchist like Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin (18141876). Nietzsche said, "Staat heisst das kälteste aller kalten Ungeheuer. Kalt lügt es auch; und diese Lüge kriecht aus seinem Munde: "Ich, der Staat, bin das Volk". 292 163 When people looked out upon distant seas they would say God was out there, but only now, Zarathustra teaches you to say, the overman. The overman has replaced God. Remember God is dead and now the overman lives ("God died: only we will, that the overman lives!" "Gott starb: nun wollen wir, dass der Übermensch lebe!"). This overman is not someone you would want to pray to, not a causa prima, not a causa sui, and not the summum ens qua summum bonum. Where did Nietzsche start from, "I do not by any means know atheism as a result; even less as an event" (Ecce Homo, 'Why I am so Clever' section 1). So, in away, God was not alive and then died for Nietzsche, rather, Nietzsche was an atheist from his early youth. But he is telling us that the death of God is the prerequisite for the overman to live. Remember though Nietzsche is neither the Zarathustra nor the overman. What idea of God does Nietzsche have in mind? What are the theological elements in Nietzsche? 164 Nietzsche at the beginning of Ecce Homo, he says, "I have a subtler sense of smell for the signs of ascent and decline than any other human being before me; I am the teacher par excellence for this – I know both, I am both" (Ecce Homo 'Why I am so Wise', section 1). Zarathustra is a teacher and advocate. Why does Nietzsche need Zarathustra as a teacher? Why are there so many teachers around? Nietzsche's uses these literary devices and techniques to communicate complex ideas by analogies and images. The clarification of concepts and ideas are purified through language by Nietzsche. 165 Heidegger wants to make philosophy a preparation to hearing Hölderlin (Contributions to Philosophy (From Ereignis), et. p. 421). This is from the late 1930s, but where is Nietzsche. Nietzsche is part of the long history from Anaximander to the end and culmination of metaphysics with Nietzsche. Nietzsche still holds on to the old metaphysical distinction between Being (Parmenides) and Becoming (Heraclitus). Heidegger often quotes the Will to Power, #617, (1886-1887), where Nietzsche said, "To stamp Becoming with the character of Being – that is the supreme will to power". The overman is on the side of flux, frenzy (Wahnsinn), lightning (Blitz), and the chaos within one self. The overman is the one who stamps Becoming on Being (Sein) with the will to power. 166 The overman has certain incomprehensibility (Unvereinbarkeit) according to Heidegger. One way of thinking about this impenetrability makes it sound like Nietzsche's overman is some kind mystical idea. I think there are really two sides that Heidegger is getting at with this remark. One of the issues is the historical interpretations that have grown up around Nietzsche's concept of the overman. The second issue is the way Nietzsche has 293 presented the concept through the literary use of a "novel". The metaphoric image of the overman requires the art of exegesis, because this not a straightforward philosophical concept laid out in an essay or a part of philosophical system like Hegel. Nietzsche used a different philosophical methodology as way of communicating his complex ideas (I am not sure he had any 'ideals' at all). He was famous for using the philosophical aphorism in a number of his books as well. Heidegger's method of thinking the unthought in a philosopher's thinking makes Heidegger's task even more difficult. Not only must Heidegger think Nietzsche's thought, but he wants to think through Nietzsche ideas to where Nietzsche wanted to take the idea but could not. This is where Nietzsche shrank back from the edge of his thinking. Plus, the reading of these texts is a hermeneutical situation and Heidegger gives part of himself to the interpretation. Heidegger never does give an ahistorical reading of a philosopher or poet. Alfred Denker has remarked Heidegger never gives an 'innocence' interpretation of a philosopher. What is the purpose of reading a philosopher? Getting a philosopher right or to bring a dead philosopher into today's lively debate and let them speak to the current serious issues. In this way we respect them and let them live again. 167 Kant's idea of the overman would be someone who knew the moral law within. According to Kant, this would be one who acted on the moral imperative even though Kant did not seem to follow that in his own life. So much for ad hominem -does that take anything way from Kant's idea? And as Nietzsche remarks for "The honeymoon of German philosophy arrived. All the young theologians of the Tübingen seminary went into the bushes – all looking for "faculties" (Beyond Good and Evil, Part 1, section 11). So, Hegel, Hölderlin, and Schelling all would look for 'faculties' to put in their overman. I am not sure this is helpful to try to figure out how these philosophers might have worked on the concept of the overman. I think it is clear that we will not find any serious connections between German idealism and Nietzsche's overman. The "absolute" of German Idealism is about as far away as you can get from Nietzsche's whole intention. 168 What is the historical background to Nietzsche's overman? Plato's philosopher-kings are the only ones that I can think of right now. Is the overman a proto-Da-sein (Heidegger's Da-sein of Being and Time)? What are similarities and differences between Nietzsche's overman and Heidegger's Da-sein? I can see no similarities and the differences are overwhelming. In a very general way, the overman and Da-sein might be seen as philosophical anthropology, but Heidegger would deny that characterization or at least he would say that he was struggling to get away from metaphysical thinking. Note: Heidegger even tried to use a different approach to language to express his thinking. For example, instead of talking about the analysis of human beings or man or women or humanity, he used the concept of Dasein or Da-sein or Da-Sein. This is just one sign of Heidegger consciously using a different language to try to move beyond philosophical anthropology. Perhaps a Kantian slip into foundations was one way that pushed Heidegger out of philosophical anthropology. On the other hand, Nietzsche's overman 294 moves forward into the future, and into a "shall" and a "hope". Nietzsche said, "It is time for man to plant the germ of his highest hope (Es ist an der Zeit, dass der Mensch den Keim seiner höchsten Hoffnung pflanze)" (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 'Zarathustra Prologue', section 4). Heidegger's analysis of Da-sein in Being and Time has no place for the "highest hope". Heidegger's hermeneutical phenomenological methodology is far removed from Nietzsche's novel. 169 Nietzsche moves within the cloud of Platonism. Even when he is critical of Platonism, he is still breathing Plato's air. Even when he is trying to reverse or invert Platonism, he is still breathing Plato's air. Even when Nietzsche says Christianity is Platonism for the people, he is still breathing Plato's air. Is the Christian the counterconcept to the overman? Nietzsche would say, "Yes, please say it is so". What is the theological relationship between the overman and God? Answer: none. What is the onto-theo-logical nature of the overman? 170 There are no philosophical propositions or proof for the overman. But, "Yes, this is a true philosophical proposition about the overman but not a proof of the overman". This is not an empirical science or psychology or sociology of the overman, but rather, philosophical thinking at the edge. Nietzsche is giving us clues and signs. The methodology that Nietzsche used can be called: genealogy or semeiotology or symptomatology (Twilight of the Idols). In speaking about his ideas, he says that they have become "riper, clearer, stronger, and more perfect...pointing imperiously into the depths, speaking more and more precisely, demanding greater and greater precision. For this alone is fitting for a philosopher." (Genealogy of Morals, 'Preface' section 2). So, we see that Nietzsche's methodology, and his measure and standard for ideas is not an empirical representation of the certain truth of the external world. These are not falsifiable or verifiable statements of science, rather, philosophical questions and reflections that are elucidated and purified. 171 Is philosophy some kind of an objective description of the external world? Hegel's Science of Logic (Wissenschaft der Logik) is the greatest attempt at laying out the world via the categories in the mind of God before creation of nature and a finite spirit. 172 (Man kann sich deswegen ausdrücken, dass dieser Inhalt die Darstellung Gottes ist, wie er in seinem ewigen Wesen vor der Erschaffung der Natur und eines endlichen Geistes ist. In Hegel's Wissenschaft der Logik, section 'Einleitung Allgemeiner Begriff der Logik'). 295 173 This is a complete metaphysical system of the highest order. What does Nietzsche think about philosophers? I think these remarks are his clearest and sharpest presentation of his position, Nietzsche said, "Gradually it has become clear to me what every great philosophy so far has been: namely, the personal confession of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir; also that the moral (or immoral) intentions in every philosophy constituted the real germ of life from which the whole plant had grown" (Beyond Good and Evil, Part 1, section 6). Did Sigmund Freud read Nietzsche or what? Freud had high praise for Nietzsche and Carl G. Jung did a seminar on Nietzsche that spread over years. We can also attempt to apply Nietzsche's position on philosophy to Nietzsche's overman. Thus, Nietzsche's overman is some kind of autobiographical report of Mr. Nietzsche. Nietzsche speaks of writing only from his direct experience. Nietzsche said, "The dangers for a philosopher's development are indeed so manifold today that one may doubt whether this fruit can still be ripen at all" (Beyond Good and Evil, Section 6, 205). The feeling that the overman will not come is spreading. 174 Is it amor fati or amor dei? Is it Nietzsche or Spinoza? Let us get it right. 175 How can it be decided that the overman lives? Is this a simple question? The overman still lives within metaphysics. 176 Are the last man and the overman different levels of self-consciousness as described by Hegel in his science of the experience of consciousness (phenomenology of spirit)? Which ones? Are they in-history? 177 Why does overman live at midday or noon? Is this a point in history? How does the overman break into history? Where is the dividing line between before and after with regard to the overman? 178 Is there is a strand of Utopian vision in Heidegger? Heidegger does not project a vision of civilization, culture, or society; but rather, a vision of man's place and relationship on earth. His thoughts and critical struggles with nihilism, metaphysics-ism, technology as enframing, etc. are meant to explore the nature of man's relationship to Being (as Ereignis). So, he does have a kind of goal and teleology. You might say eschatology, but this would need more thinking and seems to be in the wrong direction (theology). 296 Nietzsche's overman has an eschatological aspect. Overman – equals Nietzsche's utopia. How would this work? China's atheism comes from Marx, not Nietzsche. Overman would be without a Christian God. Does Buddhism (more to Nietzsche's liking, contra to Christianity) have a utopian vision in it? Thailand or Sri Lanka as utopian Buddhist cultures 297 Martin Heidegger Contra Hegel "...a historical argument and confrontation with Hegel."1 Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger's approach to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is shown by this amazing remark, "to place Hegel's system in the commanding view and then to think in a totally opposite direction".2 This may sound as if Heidegger's project is to develop a contra position to Hegel. Yes and no. Heidegger is not part of the 19th century counter movement (Gegenbewegung) to Hegel like Feuerbach, Marx, Kierkegaard, or Nietzsche (yes, Nietzsche has plenty to say contra Hegel and Hegelianism). Heidegger is developing a bridge and a transition after metaphysics and Hegel is the epitome and completion (Vollendung) of metaphysics. So, it is not a contra position per se. Nietzsche and Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) are part of the transition. Heidegger is pointing the way for us toward this transition and new second beginning (Anfang) for philosophy. What are the main philosophical matters (Sachen) between Heidegger and Hegel? In fact, following both Hegel and Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), we are subscribing to the grand methodology motto, that is, "to things/matters themselves" ("die Sachen selbst"). I want to stress Heidegger's contra thinking to Hegel. There is some agreement between these two thinkers, but that is for another time. Heidegger wants to an Auseinandersetzung (critical confrontation) and struggle with Hegel over these issues. Remember: place Hegel in front of you and then go in a total opposite direction; I think this is Heidegger's motto for his encounter with Hegel's philosophy. 1) Heidegger is contra systems in general. See Heidegger book (lectures given in 1936) about the great German philosopher: Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Von Schelling (1775-1854) (GA 42). Also, in the Contributions to Philosophy: (From Enowning), he said, "The time of "systems" is over".3 2) Heidegger notes Hegel's Science of Logic as subjectivity and the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences as "pure element of thought".4 Heidegger contra subjectivity. The Science of Logic ends with the absolute idea. 3) Heidegger is contra Hegel's infinite and eternity (GA 80). (Unendlichkeit and Ewigkeit). 4) Heidegger is contra Hegel's onto-theo-logical constitution of Metaphysics ("Die ontotheologische Verfassung der Metaphysik" GA 11). Ontology, theology, and logic. 298 5) Heidegger is contra Hegelian dialectics. (GA 1, GA 56/57, GA 63). Heidegger, by the way, is contra Plato's version of dialectics as well. 6) Heidegger is contra Hegel's concept of time from the philosophy of nature (See Being and Time, section 82) (GA 2). 7) Heidegger is contra Hegel's idea of time in the Phenomenology of Spirit as pure concept annuls time. (der reine Begriff tilgt die Zeit). 8) Heidegger sees the Phenomenology of Spirit as the major work as contra the Science of Logic. There is some connection between Being and Time (the existenziale Analytik des Da-sein) and the Phenomenology of Spirit. Whereas there appears to be no connection between Analytik of Da-sein in Being and Time and the Science of Logic (GA 32). 9) Heidegger's Being and Time contain the main thesis which is the essence of Being is time; this is the exact opposite of Hegel's philosophy according to Heidegger (GA 32). 10) Heidegger is contra the way Hegel thinks the history of philosophy (abstract developing to the highest standpoint – Hegel). Their Metahistory of philosophy are diametrically opposed. 11) Heidegger is contra Hegel on speculative philosophy. Hegel's Letter "Philosophical content has in its method and soul three forms: it is, 1, abstract, 2, dialectical, and 3, speculative." Hegel to Niethammer Nuremberg, October 23, 1812. (Werke III, 301-16). Heidegger's methodology for philosophy is not in three parts or divided in anyway. 12) Heidegger is contra Hegel's correspondence theory of truth. Science of Logic, (paragraph 39). 13) Heidegger is contra Hegel on Philosophy as Science (Wissenschaft). 14) Heidegger is contra Hegel on Science (Wissenschaft) as a circle.5. 15) Heidegger is contra Hegel on the absolute. 16) Heidegger is contra Hegel on dissolving ontology into logic.6 17) Heidegger's inceptual thinking (anfänglich Denken) is contra Hegel on conceptual thinking (begreifende Denken). Hegel said that the, "immanent development of the Concept is absolute method".7 Or, Heidegger's remark on contemplative thinking (besinnliches Denken) (letter to M. Boss, Sept 12, 1965). 299 18) Heidegger is contra Hegel's absolute metaphysics.8 19) Heidegger is contra Hegel's logic in the sense of metaphysics as theo-logic.9 20) Heidegger is contra Hegel's God as the absolute Spirit.10 21) Heidegger is contra Hegel's Being as "indeterminate immediacy". 11 22) Open Issue: Heidegger wrote an essay on Hegel's concept of negativity in the Hegel's metaphysical system. The essay is called, "Die Negativität (1938-1939). "12 How does Heidegger understand the concept of negativity in Hegel? 23) Open Issue: Hegel's Aesthetics. See Letters: Stager-Heidegger Correspondence.13 24) Open Issue: Heidegger places Hegel in the history of being as will to absolute knowledge (Wesen). 25) Open Issue: According to Otto Pöggeler, Heidegger borrowed for many years the original edition of the Hegel's The doctrine of Essence (Die Lehre vom Wesen) from the Hegel-Archiv. This is Book Two of the Science of Logic (Wissenschaft der Logk). Heidegger gave a seminar on this topic in the Wintersemester 1955/56. There is a known Heidegger manuscript from this seminar. This work may turn out to be the most detailed interpretation of Hegel's Science of Logic by Heidegger. There are manuscripts from Heidegger's seminars on many other topics than either the Phenomenology of Spirit or the Science of Logic. For example: 1) Hegels Jenenser Realphilosophie, 2) Hegels Metaphysik der Geschichte, 3) Hegel Über den Staat, and 4) Ontologie des Aristoteles und Hegels Logik.14 We await these publications in perhaps GA 86 Seminar: Hegel Schelling. 26) Open Issue: Heidegger is against worldviews (Weltanschauung) – Hegel wants to create some kind of a metaphysical worldview (Weltanschauung). Perhaps Hegel's Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences gives us a total vision of Hegel's idea of a complete metaphysical system as it expands into all of its moments. 27) Open Issue: Heidegger said, "Hegel jumped over his own shadow into the sun" (Hegel jumped over his Schatten...and into Sonne.").15 The elimination of finiteness of humans (Endlichkeit des menschen) by Hegel. Heidegger says this is the nature of a philosopher to want to try to jump over their own shadow. This means to attempt something eternal and not to be tied to the finite. 28) Open Issue: Heidegger says for Hegel freedom is will and will is freedom. What is Heidegger's position on freedom and will? 300 Footnotes: 1. GA36/37, p.14. ...geschichtliche Auseinandersetzung mit Hegel." 2. GA 65, p.176. „Hegels Systematik in den beherrschenden Blick bringen und doch ganz entgegengesetzt denken." 3. GA 65, 1936-1938, p.5. "Die Zeit der "Systeme" ist vorbei."Et.p.4 .Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis). 4. Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften section 14. p.67. "rein im Elemente des Denkens." 5. G.W.F. Hegel, Wissenschaft der Logik I. In Werke: Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1970, p. 84, 85. See also Kant's KrV, A797/B825 'Kreises'. There is a perhaps a circle in Heidegger in what is called the hermeneutical circle. 6. GA 24, p.254. 7. G.W.F. Hegel, Wissenschaft der Logik I. In Werke: Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1970, p.8. "immanente Entwicklung des Begriffes ist die absolute Methode" 8. Schelling Abhandlung uber das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit. Published by Max Niemeyer Verlag Tübingen, 1971. p.235. 9. GA 36/37, p.76. (Logik im Sinne der Theo-Logik). 10. G.W.F. Hegel, Wissenschaft der Logik II. In Werke: Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1970, p.267. Where Hegel says, "nicht aber Gott als absoluter Geist, als welcher allein die wahrhafte Natur Gottes ist." Gott als absoluter Geist. 11. G.W.F. Hegel, Wissenschaft der Logik I. In Werke: Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1970, p.101. Sein als "Das Sein ist das unbestimmte Unmittelbare." 12. GA 68, p.3-61. 13. "Letters: The Staiger-Heidegger Correspondence". In: Man and World. Volume 14. 1981, pages 291-307. 14. Martin Heidegger's Courses and Seminars (by Dr. Alfred Denker) 301 15. GA 41, p.153. 302 The relationship between Being and Time (1927) and Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis) 1936-1939 Introduction Martin Heidegger's first magnum opus was Being and Time (1927) written in 1926 and finished in 1927. This partial finished project was rushed to publication, so that Heidegger (1889-1976) could be promoted to full professorship at the University of Marburg. Therefore, he needed a publication. The committee minutes of June 24, 1925 say that Professor Rudolf Wedekind was the one who asked about Heidegger's publications. The chair of philosophy that was once Paul Natorp (1854-1924) and Nicolai Hartmann (1882-1950) was now open and Heidegger need a significant publication to be considered for this position. Heidegger rushed and pushed to publish some parts of his uncompleted project Being and Time (1927) (Sein und Zeit). Being and Time became a singular incomplete publication, which has propelled Heidegger to the forefront of the philosophical stage during the twentieth century. Heidegger's second major philosophical text has a much more tartan background. The Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis) or the German title, Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) (GA 65) was finalized in the handwritten version in May of 1939; however, it was not published until 1989 or 50 years after it was written or 13 years after Heidegger's death in 1976. Now in the years after its publication, the Beiträge is still being digested by the philosophical world. Its language, its style, the matter for thought and its general appearance makes it a complex and dense text. In addition, Heidegger makes numerous references to many of his other writings and some sixteen of those works are still not published; so those references make little sense to us until we can finally see those publications. However, certainly Heidegger sees this text as an important and central text in his thinking at least during the late 1930s and early 1940s. It should be noted that this is not a historical lecture series nor philosophical addresses, this is rather a text that was written and held back for publication and was not generally known among Heidegger's students. Unlikely many of Heidegger's other publications, this was not delivered to students or philosophers. The text more or less stands on its own as a single project. Why did Heidegger not publish this during his lifetime, since the text was typed and reviewed with Heidegger's brother Fritz Heidegger by June 3, 1939? And why has this text not generated the same interest and impact as Being and Time (1927)? I think it is important to note that Otto Pöggeler has called this text Heidegger's "true magnum opus". There are just too many major texts that have yet to be seen. This is one of Heidegger's major texts and it demonstrates some very original thinking and it can not be seen as some third part of Being and Time or some continuation of that whole project. In the Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939), Heidegger makes a number of references to Being and Time (1927) and it is the task of this reading and 303 aphorisms to make sense of how far or how close Heidegger has come to Being and Time (1927) after writing that monograph. What is the relationship between these two written texts? Professor Dr. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann says that Being and Time is a Grundwerk and the Beiträge is a Hauptwerk. Alexander Schwan says the Beiträge is a transitional work. At least at this point, we have two major written volumes from Heidegger, which were written for publication even if one was incomplete (Being and Time) and the second one has a section (VIII. Das Seyn) added on to publication which is an "attempt to grasp the whole once again." This clearly shows Heidegger underway. Heidegger on Heidegger (Being and Time) in the Schelling book Heidegger's publication Schelling's Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom. (GA42, but originally published in 1971 with the added notes from 1941) sheds light on his later relationship to Being and Time. This was written in 1936 with notes added from 1941. In the book about Schelling that Heidegger published in his own life time, Heidegger put a note in parenthesis about Being and Time, which reads: "(I am not saying that Being and Time has become something past for me. I have still not "gotten any further" today because I know with ever increasing clarity that I must not get any "further," but perhaps I have gotten closer in some things that was attempted in Being and Time)". (Schelling's Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom, et p. 189). As the author of the book Being and Time, Heidegger, some fourteen years later, is still coming to grips with what it means and what he attempted in the Being and Time, perhaps he got too much "farther" and now recognizes what he did. Heidegger went through many drafts as he wrote Being and Time (1927). Theodore Kisiel has delimited three drafts of Being and Time. The Dilthey Draft: "The concept of time"; The ontoeroteric draft: history of the concept of time"; and the final draft: toward a kairology of Being (The Genesis of Heidegger's Being and time, p. viii). In another part of the Kisiel text there is another way of talking about the drafts and revisions that Heidegger when through on the way to the final publication: "The Dilthey draft, the Husserl draft, and the Kantian draft." (et. p. 313). Heidegger is moreover still committed to phenomenology for in the last section of Being and Time we read a incredibly decisive remark: "That is especially true if the statement expressed in our introduction is retained as a standard for every philosophical investigation: Philosophy is universal phenomenology ontology, beginning with a hermeneutics of Da-sein which, as an analytic of existence, had made fast the guidelines for all philosophical questioning at the point where it arises and to which it returns". (GA 2. Section 83, et. 397, G p. 436). Now the later Heidegger may still hold to this position and he may see his later efforts to be philosophical "before" or a prior or foundationally "before" Being and Time. Did the later Heidegger consider that he was still following the phenomenological project of philosophy as primal science (Urwissenschaft)? No, I think Heidegger gave up the phenomenological methodology. But it is perhaps one matter for thought but at seemingly two different starting points of his writings. What is Heidegger's methodology that he applied in these two different publications (texts)? 304 So, he has not gotten "further" but rather closer to the question about the meaning (Sinn) of Being. By the time of the (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis)), Heidegger has transformed "the question of Being is the question about the truth of Being (Seyn)" (GA 65 et p. 5). Although Heidegger I and Heidegger II issues have been around for years, even Heidegger tried to lay the distinction to rest, but the general issue of the chronology of Heidegger's thinking makes an interesting scholarly pursuit. Nevertheless, Heidegger's thinking always revolves around his solitary pursuit and his sole questioning. Heidegger wrote in a letter to his student Karl Löwith (August 20, 1927), "To tell the truth, I am not really interested in my development..." (Theodore Kisiel, need bibliographical info, p.8). For Heidegger, the "book", the "title of a treatise," etc. entitled Being and Time (1927) is always different than the attempted thinking that Heidegger was trying. The question of the meaning (Sinn) of Being was at first being explored by Heidegger. Certainly, the one thing that Heidegger had not completely seen in Being and Time was the whole matter of history of metaphysics. Heidegger saw that his attempt was not even post-metaphysical, but at a point where Heidegger wanted to leave metaphysics completely behind and that means not being a countermovement to metaphysics. Was Being and Time (1927) still within the history of metaphysics; was it still an example of metaphysical thinking? Note: Heidegger is no longer doing an analytic of Da-sein nor searching for the meaning of Being in the Beiträge. Perhaps both of these two matters had the ring of being too subjective, even too much philosophical anthropology (as Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) had suggested) -perhaps even the term like "meaning" ("Sinn") sounds too subjective. A little further down on the page in the Schelling book, Heidegger has another parenthetical remark about Being and Time. Heidegger wrote, "(Being and Time as the name for the Ereignis in Being itself. Being and Time as the formula for a reflection within the history of thinking. Being and Time as the title of a treatise which attempts to bring about this thinking)." (Schelling's Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom et. p. 189). Why all of these as parenthetical remarks? When were these added to the text? As a general rule these are remarks that Heidegger did not read during his lectures to students. This text is based on a lecture series of 1941 and was re-worked for publication in 1971 several years before Heidegger's death in 1976. Therefore, we can suggest that these were either written at the same time as the course was given or they were added at the point of the re-working for the lecture series for the actual publication. Obviously for Heidegger the actual published book (Being and Time) is no longer the issue, but what thinking was attempted is important. What is the relationship between Being and Time (1927) and Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939)? Why did Heidegger want to explore this relationship in his second major text? Beside the Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis) we have an additional text which is not yet published (Zu eigenen Veröffentlichungen GA 82), which is a key text for understanding Heidegger's later view of his earlier project, the publication as we know it: Being and Time (1927). Certainly, when this new text (GA 82) is published it may change our understanding of how Heidegger's view of Being and 305 Time (1927) changed over time. Heidegger reflected on his earlier efforts. This is all about Heidegger on Heidegger. The following aphorisms look at quotes from Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis) that have to do with Being and Time. These are not all of the references that Heidegger makes to Being and Time in the Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis), but I take them as the most important ones for considering this relationship. So, another way of saying this is from the perspective of Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis) -how does Being and Time look now. 1 Section 16. Philosophy "Philosophy is the immediate, useless, but at the same time masterful knowing from within mindfulness. Mindfulness in inquiring into the meaning (cf. Being and Time (1927)), i.e., into the truth of Seyn." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 31). Section 16. Philosophie ist das unmittelbar nutzlose, aber gleichwohl herrschaftliche Wissen aus der Besinnung. Besinnung ist Fragen nach dem Sinn, d.h. (vgl. Sein und Zeit) nach der Wahrheit des Seyns. (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) (GA 65, p. 43). Philosophy in Being and Time and in the Contributions to Philosophy does not mean practical knowledge and is not useful for practical matter; but rather, philosophy is mindfulness and an investigation into meaning. But in the end Heidegger comes back to the truth of Seyn. This is part of Heidegger's punch at ethics as being part of Philosophy, since for Heidegger; philosophy in the true sense is not involved with ethics in anyway. Like a square peg in a round hole. For Heidegger, this is a form of conceptual confusion to link ethics and practice knowledge of how to live with your life with philosophy, which is radically transformed by Heidegger to the seeking and questioning of the meaning and truth of Being (Sein, Seyn). Do you really want Heidegger or anyone to tell you how to live your life? Are you looking for philosophers to give you some practical knowledge for life? No, I do not think so. Buy low and sell high – now you know everything you need to know about the stock market. What does Heidegger mean by meaning here? Do we have a problem of subjectivity with the pursuit of "meaning" (Sinn)? Perhaps part of Heidegger's problem is to escape metaphysical language. 2 Section 42. From "Being and Time (1927)" to "Enowning" "On this "way" – if stumbling and getting up again can be called that the same question of the "meaning of Seyn" is always asked, and only this question. And therefore the locations (Standorte) are constantly different. Each time that it asks more originarily, every essential questioning must transform itself from the ground up. Here there is no gradual "development". Even less does that relationship exist between what comes later 306 and what is earlier, according to which what is earlier already includes what comes later. Because in the thinking of Seyn everything steers toward what is unique, stumblings are, as it were, the rule!" (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 58-59) Section 42. Von „Sein und Zeit" zum „Ereignis" Auf diesem „Weg", wenn das Stürzen und Steigen so heissen kann, wird immer die selbe Frage nach dem „Sinn des Seyns" und nur sie gefragt. Und deshalb sind die Standorte des Fragens ständig verschieden. Jedes wesentliche Fragen muss sich, jedes Mal wenn es ursprünglicher fragt, von Grund aus wandeln. Es gibt hier keine gradweise „Entwicklung". Es gibt noch weniger jenes Verhältnis des Späteren zum Früheren, wonach in diesem schon Jenes beschlossen läge. Weil im Denken des Seyns alles sich auf das Einzige zu hält, sind hier die Umstürze gleichsam die Regel! (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) (GA 65, p. 84-85). Heidegger has explicitly entitled this section from Being and Time to "Enowning" and he starts out this section with an unambiguous way of describing his methodology, namely, stumbling and getting up again. This sounds strange as a philosophical methodology, but here Heidegger is giving us a metaphor for what it is like to start again and again with this single and simple question, which becomes such so much more of a simple question as "he" and "we" attempt to come with some kind of answer to this question. He continues on to speak about asking for the question from different standpoints or locations (Standorte). The overall attempt is ask the question from a (possibly 'any' location) location which is outside of metaphysics. Even if he can get one foot outside of metaphysics, then this would get closer to where Heidegger wants to ask the question. Even though Being and Time was earlier – somehow Heidegger is not concerned with earlier and later. Because he knows that this thinking after Being is not easy and the awkward movement within the question of the meaning and truth of Being is as it was typically of philosophy. Heidegger is speaking from the heart that philosophy and ontology are not a simple working out the details of everything is that is already known. Not much is known and all attempts are like running around circles. Heidegger would want us to know that sometimes even getting the single question right is hard. But this way of proceeding is called by Heidegger the "rule", since in fact the methodology is in fact just stumbling. Obviously this is not a good methodology, but Heidegger is being unpretentious and truthful about the difficult of this task. Thinking is questioning and questioning can lead to thinking. Philosophy is philosophizing as thinking. Tautologies are in fact tautological. 3 "In the attempts since Being and Time (1927) the question is indeed put forth more originarily, but everything is kept in more modest measure – if one can compare measures at all." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 59) 307 In den Versuchen seit „Sein und Zeit" ist zwar die Frage ursprüngliche angesetzt, aber alles hält sich in einem, wenn überhaupt vergleichbaren, geringeren Massstab. (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) (GA 65, p. 85). It is interesting that Heidegger is using the Nietzschean term of attempts (Versuchen) to describe his pathway and questioning. He used this term at the beginning of the Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis), Heidegger said, "However, the public title does correspond to the "matter", insofar as, in the age of crossing from metaphysics into Seyn-historical thinking, one can venture only an attempt to think according to a more originary basic stance within the question of the truth of Seyn." (GA 65, first page, before section 1). Philosophy is no more and no less than "attempts" at philosophizing. Heidegger said on the same page, "Future thinking is a thinking that is underway..." and this means that we do not come to an end and final version of philosophical knowledge. Back to the text. Heidegger does not want to do a priori metaphysics and with locations one is never sure if one is going back into the ground of the question of the meaning and truth of Being or what is proceeding is as it were on to higher ground or deeper ground or more to "its" origins; but nevertheless, Heidegger wants to move toward the "origins" of the truth of Being (Seyn). Can we compare modest or otherwise "measures" or "standards" of our attempts at philosophizing? At least for Heidegger, his remark points out that somehow Being and Time went too far and now we need to be more "modest" in our (his) attempts at philosophizing. 4 "The danger of misinterpreting Being and Time (1927) in this direction, i.e., "existentiellanthropologically", and of seeing the interconnection of disclosedness, truth, and Dasein from the perspective of a moral resolve – instead of the other way, proceeding from the prevailing ground of Da-sein and grasping truth as openness and dis-closedness, as temporalizing-spatializing of the free play of the time-space of Seyn-such danger looms and gets stronger by many things that are unaccomplished in Being and Time (1927). But this misinterpretation is basically excluded (although not in the overcoming that is worked out), if from the beginning we hold on to the grounding-question of the "meaning of Seyn" as the only question." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 6061) Die Gefahr, „Sein und Zeit" in dieser Richtung „existenziell" - „anthropologisch" zu missdeuten, die Zusammenhänge zwischen Entschlossenheit – Wahrheit – Dasein von der moralisch gemeinten Entschliessung zu sehen, statt umgekehrt von dem waltenden Grunde des Da-seins her, die Wahrheit als Offenheit und die Ent-schlossenheit als die zeitigende Einräumung des Zeit-Spiel-Raumes des Seyns zu begreifen, diese Gefahr liegt nahe und wird durch das vielfach Unbewältigte in „Sein und Zeit" verstärkt. Aber die Missdeutung ist im Grunde, wenngleich nicht in der ausführenden Überwindug, gebannt, wenn von Anfang an die Grundfrage nach dem „Sinn des Seyns" als die einzige Frage festgehalten wird. (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) (GA 65, p. 8788). 308 In this interesting passage Heidegger is telling us that Being and Time should not interpreted as philosophical anthropology or as an issue of morality and ethics. Because of its importance for understanding Edmund Husserl's (1859-1938) attack on Heidegger's Being and Time, I have included two paragraphs from Husserl's famous lecture. Phenomenology and Anthropology. Husserl delivered the lecture in 1931 to meetings of the Kantgesellschaft in Frankfurt (June 1), Berlin (June 10), and Halle (June 16). Husserl said, "As is well known, over the last decade some of the younger generation of German philosophers has been gravitating with ever increasing speed toward philosophical anthropology. Currently Wilhelm Dilthey's philosophy of life, a new form of anthropology, exercises a great deal of influence. But even the so-called "phenomenological movement" has got caught up in this new trend, which alleges that the true foundation of philosophy lies in human being alone, and more specifically in a doctrine of the essence of human being's concrete worldly Dasein. Some view this as a necessary reform of the original constitutive phenomenology, one that for the very first time would supposedly permit phenomenology to attain the level of authentic philosophy. All of this constitutes a complete reversal of phenomenology's fundamental standpoint. Original phenomenology, which has matured into transcendental phenomenology, denies to any science of human being, whatever its form, a share in laying the foundations for philosophy, and opposes all related attempts at foundation-laying as being anthropologism or psychologism. Nowadays, however, the exact opposite is supposed to hold. Phenomenological philosophy is supposedly now to be constructed entirely anew from out of human Dasein." This last sentence from Husserl does not name Heidegger directly, but he is clearly talking about Heidegger and I think Heidegger also heard about Husserl's critical comments from contemporary newspaper accounts as well. So in this passage Heidegger is pointing out the wrong-headed interpretation of Being and Time as anthropology by remembering Heidegger's whole thinking is about the meaning (Sinn) of Being. Dasein's analytic is to look at temporality as the meaning of Being. The title of this work is not Being and Da-sein, but rather, Being and Time. We can see this in the complete title of "Part One" in Being and Time. Erster Teil: Die Interpretation des Daseins auf die Zeitlichkeit und die Explikation der Zeit als des transzendentalen Horizontes der Frage nach dem Sein PART One: The Interpretation of Da-Sein in Terms of Temporarility and the Explication of Time as the Transcendental Horizon of the Question of Being Part one is about the question of Being and time/temporality. In addition, Heidegger gives us directions on how to approach this from "grasping truth as openness and disclosedness, as temporalizing-spatializing of the free play of the time-space of Seyn". He used the expression "Zeit-Spiel-Raumes"as one expression, which can be translated as 309 "time-play-space." Heraclitus (540 BC to 480 BC), son of Vloson said in Fragment 208, Themistius Or. 5, p. 69 D. "Nature loves to hide". This hiding and showing is a "play". What do you think I am playing with you? No, I am dead serious. How can you be serious on some printed words on paper? Or bits in a computer? It is hard to image Heidegger and Husserl engaged in normal conversation about anything. I think the age difference might have added to their non-intersection of philosophy. Was it that Heidegger was a believer in Husserlian phenomenology for awhile and then he out grew it; or was Heidegger only interested in the methodological issues and he never was a believer? Perhaps the letters would tell us more. 5 "If we ponder this task of the other beginning (the question of the "meaning" of Seyn in the formulation of Being and Time (1927)), then it will also become clear that al attempts that react against metaphysics – which is everywhere idealistic, even as positivism – persist in being re-active and thus are in principle dependent upon metaphysics and thereby remain themselves metaphysics. " (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p.122) Überdenken wir diese Aufgabe des anderen Anfangs (die Frage nach dem „Sinn" des Seyns in der Formel von „Sein und Zeit"), dann wird auch deutlich, dass alle Versuche, die gegen die Metaphysik, die überall – auch als Positivismus – idealistisch ist, reagieren, eben re-aktiv und damit von der Metaphysik grundsätzlich abhängig und somit selbst Metaphysik bleiben. (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) (GA 65, p. 173). We can say that Überdenken means to consider, ponder, ruminate, and cogitate, about the other beginning to philosophy. The first beginning was with the Greeks. The historical domain (Bereich) needs to be brought to an end and a new beginning and a new domain of history needs to begin. Our history has immeasurable (endless) possibilities, if we can bring about the transfiguration in the crossing or transition toward the new, other beginning of western philosophy. The second beginning is used by Heidegger to show us another pathway that philosophy must take. The final point Heidegger is making that the reactions to metaphysics remain tied to metaphysics in the same way that Marx remained tied to Hegel even in his countermovement to Hegelianism. Nietzsche was the last metaphysician of western philosophy and his reaction was tied to his attempt to invert Platonism, which Nietzsche did but in the meantime he remained with Plato's world. In terms of the relationship though Heidegger is putting the meaning of Being question of Being and Time within the framework of considering the task of the other beginning. Nietzsche and Heidegger both are part of the movement against the metaphysical system of Hegel and that means against metaphysics in general and it remains to be seen if there is any way past metaphysics. The remnant of metaphysics still dominates the worldview of western philosophy. 6 310 "1. Being here [in the first beginning] means beingness and not – as in Being and Time (1927) – Being that is originarily questioned as to its truth; beingness as what is „general"to beings." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 137) 1. Sein meint hier Seiendheit und nicht, wie in „Sein und Zeit", das ursprünglich auf seine Wahrheit befragte Sein selbst; Seiendheit als das „Generelle" für das Seiende. (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) (GA 65, p. 196). In these remarks Heidegger is making some distinctions. The general Heideggerian distinctions are: Being (modern Sein), Be-ing (older usage Seyn, sometimes Heidegger uses this to refer to his new sense of Being), beingness or Beingness (Seiendheit), a being (Seiend), being in total or in general (Seiende-im-Ganzen). In the first part of Being and Time, Heidegger said: "We therefore wish to discuss these prejudices only to the extent that the necessity of a retrieve of the question of the meaning of being becomes evident. There are three such prejudices: 1. "Being" is the most "universal" concept: to on esti katholou malista panton 2. The concept of "being" is indefinable. 3. "Being" is the self-evident concept." (In the section: The Necessity of an Explicit Retrieve of the Question of Being). This section from Being and Time is important in the overcoming of the normal way of thinking about the Being of beings that Heidegger is attacking. Being (Sein or Seyn) is never meant to be "beingness". Beingness is what is most general for beings. Heidegger is noting here that in Being and Time, Being means what is questioned with regard to the truth of Being or the meaning of Being (not as beingness). The way up to Being and the way down to Being is the same path that ontologists attempt to take with their freedom. 7 "c) The "fundamental-ontological" transcendence in Being and Time (1927). Here the word's originary meaning is returned to it: surpassing as such; and it is grasped as the distinctive mark of Da-sein, in order thus to indicate that Dasein always already stands within the openness of beings." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 151) c) die „fundamentalontologische" Transzendenz in „Sein und Zeit". Hier wird dem Wort „Transzendenz" sein ursprünglicher Sinn zurückgegeben: die Übersteigung als solche, und sie wird begriffen als Auszeichnung des Da-seins, um damit anzuzeigen, dass dieses je schon im Offenen des Seienden steht. (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (19361939) (GA 65, p. 217). 311 One might justly suggest, that Heidegger is making the point about what he really meant about using the word transcendence (Transzendenz) in his publication Being and Time; and I think we might be worried about any Kantian connection that may have arisen. On the contrary, Heidegger is suggesting that we think of the original meaning of the word as just surpassing. I think the reason Heidegger did not publish the third part was because of the problem with the philosophical language in Being and Time. The problem of how to do language is a recurring theme for Heidegger and of course it makes sense that he would have a problem with Being and Time after he wrote it – in his attempts to escape the prison of metaphysical language. In the beginning of the Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis), Heidegger wrote, "Philosophy cannot appear in public in any other way, since all essential titles have become impossible, because all fundamental words have been used up and the genuine relation to the word has been destroyed." Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis), p. 3. Note: this is actually the second sentence of the book). This is not a very subtle way of saying that philosophical language is broken and there will be problems in communicating with the reader in "right" language. This is a language which on one hand is an attempt at non-metaphysical language; and on the other hand is still caught steadfast in the web of metaphysics. Da-sein stands within the opening or the open one (Offenen) of beings. The clearing and opening of beings can be partial named as Being. 8 "(What unfolds as "destruction" in Being and Time (1927) does not mean dismantling as demolishing but as purifying in the direction of freeing basic metaphysical positions. But considering the enactment of echo and playing-forth, all of this is a prelude.)" (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 154) (Was in „Sein und Zeit" als „Destruktion" entfaltet ist, meint nicht Abbau als Zerstörung, sondern Reinigung in der Richtung des Freilegens der metaphysischen Grundstellungen. Aber dies alles ist im Blick auf den Vollzug von Anklang und Zuspiel nur das Vorspiel.) (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) (GA 65, p. 221). This is a very interesting remark about the function of "destruction" in Being and Time. Question: in terms of the structure of Being and Time, why did Heidegger not start with the whole concept of "destruction"? Given is importance and the way Heidegger approached so many philosophical texts in his teaching, then why not start with the topic of "destruction"? So, this is not destruction in general, nor dismantling, nor demolishing; but rather, more precisely it means: the process of purification. The freeing of hard nose metaphysical positions that we are attempting to break from within. From the outset, Heidegger has been taken to task on the use of the word "destruction" and this also came up in his publication, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. 312 In the Preface to the Second Edition (June 1950) to Kant and problem of Metaphysics, Heidegger says, "Readers have taken constant offense at the violence of my interpretations. Their allegation of violence can indeed be supported by this text." (Kant and problem of Metaphysics. et. p. xx). Heidegger wrote in the body of the text these crucial words, "Certainly, in order to wring from what the words say, what it is they want to say, every interpretation must necessarily use violence." (Section 35, 201-203, et. 141). Why must we use force and violence? In the margin Husserl writes, "I differentiate between what they wanted to say and what they untimely aimed at and wanted to say as they were said" (Psychological and transcendental phenomenology and the confrontation with Heidegger (1927-1931) : the Encyclopaedia Britannica article, the Amsterdam lectures, "Phenomenology and anthropology," and Husserl's marginal notes in Being and time, and Kant and the problem of metaphysics / Edmund Husserl). These strong words like "destruction" and the use of "violence" in reading philosophical text has put Heidegger in the forefront of hermeneutical readings of philosophers and poets. What should be our relationship to the past and to philosophy in general? 9 "Metaphysics never moves beyond this parameter. Being and Time (1927) therefore seems to be something self-evident!"(Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 156). Über diesen Rahmen kommt die Metaphysik nicht hinaus. „Sein und Zeit" scheint daher etwas Selbstverständliches zu sein! (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (19361939) (GA 65, p. 223-224). There are perhaps many reasons that Heidegger thinks this is the case. Being is something that self-evident and even the publication is Being and Time is just an obvious fact, that is, self-evident. 10 "Being and Time (1927) is the crossing to the leap (asking the grounding-question). As long as one accounts for this attempt as "philosophy of existence," everything remains uncomprehended."(Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 165) „Sein und Zeit" ist der Übergang zum Sprung (Fragen der Grundfrage). Solange man daher diesen Versuch als „Existenzphilosophie" sich zurechtlegt, bleibt alles unbegriffen. (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) (GA 65, p. 234). It is interesting that Heidegger most likely is talking about Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911). At the time Heidegger was writing the Beiträge, his so-called friend, Karl Jaspers was giving three lectures on this topic: Existenzphilosophie: drei Vorlesungen gehalten am Freien Deutschen Hochstift in Frankfurt a. M., September 1937. So, there are a number of places and people that Heidegger could have heard as criticisms of Being and Time as some simple philosophy of existence. Heidegger, looking back with 20/20 hindsight is 313 now seeing that Being and Time is part of the crossing to the leap to the ground question of the truth of Being. Did he see this in 1926-1927 when he was thinking and writing Being and Time? No, I do not think so, but it is his "call" and his backward or forward sight as well. Heidegger was against the title that Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) came up with as a school of philosophy, namely, Existentialism (Existence before essence). Which Heidegger said was just another metaphysical proposition and having nothing to do with Heidegger's thought. 11 "In the question of being we are dealing solely with the enactment of this preparation for our history. All specific "contents" and "opinions" and "pathways" of the first attempt in Being and Time (1927) are incidental and can disappear." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 171) Um den Vollzug dieses Vorbereitenden unserer Geschichte handelt es sich allein in der Seinfrage. Alle „Inhalte" und „Meinungen" und „Wege" im Besonderen des ersten Versuchs von „Sein und Zeit" sind zufällig und können verschwinden. (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) (GA 65, p. 242). In these remarks Heidegger is quite modest, but at the philosophical level this is down right dangerous – since we thought we had known where Heidegger stood on so many topics (content, opinions, and yes, even ways) in Being and Time. Heidegger has slipped by us again and again – just when we thought we had him nailed down. In the introduction to the Science of Logic, Hegel indicated that the chapters and explanations are "In conformity with this method, I would point out that the divisions and headings of the books, sections and chapters given in this work as well as the explanations associated with them, are made to facilitate a preliminary survey and strictly are only of historical value. They do not belong to the content and body of the science but are compilations of an external reflection which has already run through the whole of the exposition and consequently knows and indicates in advance the sequence of its moments before these are brought forward by the subject matter itself." (Science of Logic, et. p.54, Section 64). Hegel and Heidegger are both here telling us to wake up and realize that they are pointing beyond the simple inside contents of these publications (texts). Remember these are not "works" and some final perfectly written publication, but rather, philosophical thought in-flight and underway. Yes, even Hegel does not have a final and simple "fixed" position for repeating in a philosophy lecture somewhere and ahistorical critical paper or article in an academic journal that rescinds or annuls Hegel's thinking (as if that were possible). 12 "Being and Time (1927) is therefore not an "ideal" or a "program" but rather the selfpreparing beginning of the essential swaying of Seyn itself – not what we think up but – granted that we are ripe for it – what compels us into a thinking that neither offers a 314 doctrine nor brings about a "moral" action nor secures "existence"; instead "only" grounds truth as the free-play of time-space, in which a being can again become "a being," i.e., come to preserve Seyn." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 171) „Sein und Zeit" ist daher kein „Ideal" und kein „Programm", sondern der sich vorbereitende Anfang der Wesung des Seyns selbst, nicht was wir erdenken, sondern was uns, gesetzt, dass wir dafür reif geworden, in ein Denken zwingt, das weder eine Lehre gibt noch ein „moralisches" Handeln veranlasst, noch die „Existenz" sichert, das vielmehr „nur" die Wahrheit gründet als den Zeit-Spiel-Raum, in den das Seiende wieder seiend, d.h. zur Verwahrung des Seyns werden kann. (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) (GA 65, p. 243). Being and Time is not 1) ideal 2) doctrine 3) program 4) moral action 5) secures existence as we know it. What is Being and Time? It grounds Time-Play-Space, when a being is preserved for safe keeping (custody, Verwahrung) within Being. 13 "In Being and Time (1927) [this relation is] first grasped as "understanding of being," whereby understanding is grasped as projecting-open – and the opening-throwing as thrown, and that means: belonging to en-ownment by Seyn itself."(Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 178) In „Sein und Zeit" erstmals begriffen als „Seinsverständnis", wobei Verstehen als Entwurf zu fassen und die Entwerfung als geworfene und das will sagen zugehörig der Er-eignung durch das Seyn selbst. (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) (GA 65, p. 252). There seems to be three levels in these remarks: 1) Being and Time 2) Projecting open 3) En-owning through Being It is interesting for a soccer player, Heidegger seems more interested in throwing and what is thrown than kicked (yes, this is a joke). We do not get a choice here and the sense is therefore that we are thrown into the deep end of the pool or in this case life itself. 14 315 "(Because here is the nearest region of decision about the truth of Seyn, leaping up [Ansprung] into the other beginning had to be attempted as Being and Time (1927).)"(Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 181) (Weil hier das nächste Entscheidungsfeld über die Wahrheit des Seyns liegt, musste der Ansprung zum anderen Anfang als „Sein und Zeit" versucht werden.) (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) (GA 65, p. 257). Leaping to the new, other beginning (western philosophy) of Heidegger's version of Being was first done in Being and Time according to Heidegger, which maybe 20/20 hindsight. The clouds are lovely today and there is no shadow talking to me like Nietzsche. Plus, I need to get bread tonight. This is all a side discussion about what are leftover philosophical notes (Nachlass) that are not 'really' meant for publication. What is the status of any of Heidegger's publication vis-a-via his philosophical notes and some of these parenthetical remarks make us wonder why he put these remarks inside the text? Nietzsche wrote in one of his notebooks that "I have forgotten my umbrella". So, the question is how are we to understand the importance of any single passage is a key question. Back to the point: the decision about the truth of Being is Heidegger's hardest 'point' as the ultimate and single question for philosophy. How much did Heidegger know and when did he know it with regard to the project of Being and Time? In a sense, only he knows what he was attempting to do with Being and Time. 15 Section 161 Being-toward Death "No one has yet surmised or dared to ponder what was thought ahead regarding beingtoward-death in the context of Being and Time (1927) and only there, i.e., what was thought "fundamental-ontologically" and never anthropologically and in terms of "worldview"."(Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 199) Section 161 Das Sein zum Tode Was damit im Zusammenhang von „Sein und Zeit" und nur da, d. h. „fundamentalontologisch", niemals anthropologisch und „weltanschaulich" gedacht, vorgedacht ist, hat noch Keiner geahnt und nachzudenken gewagt. (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) (GA 65, p. 283). Being and Time is not: 1) Anthropology 2) worldview But it is rather totally conceived as fundamental ontology. Our question for Heidegger is about the transition from asking the question about the meaning of Being to the analytic of Da-sein. How are we to find the answer in the midst of concepts like being-in-theworld, worldhood, everydayness, and care? In all philosophical publications 'works' 316 there always problems of structure and transition issues – think Hegel as well. Remember there are two parts to the Kant's Critique of Pure Reason – ok name them? Answer: Transzendentale Elementarlehre and Transzendentale Methodenlehre. Why are there these two parts in the Critique of Pure Reason? What are the structural problems in Being and Time and Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis)? Yes, another Heideggerian task. Heidegger may have told us to get on with thinking and do not worry about the "writing" issues. This may reflect more intent than any direct philosophical issues. If you are doing philosophy as aphorisms, then it seems like you will always have problems of structure and transition issues. Heidegger tried to avoid this in the Beiträge when he said, "This outline does not yield an arrangement of various observations about various objects. It is also not an introductory ascent from what is below to what is above. It breaks ahead into the free-play of time-space which the history of the crossing first opens up as its realm, in order, with its law, to decide about those who are without a future, i.e., those who are always only "eternal", and about those who are to come, i.e., those who are but once." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis) et. p. 5). But the question still remains: is there a problem in structure? In theory, your methodology should bestow the "how" of the structure. Heidegger's problem – in doubles. 16 "In Being and Time (1927) Da-sein still stands in the shadow of the "anthropological," the "subjectivistic," and the "individualistic," etc. – and yet the opposite of all of this is what we have in view of course, not as what was initially and solely intended, but rather this opposite, everywhere only the necessary consequence of the deciding transformation of the "question of being" from guiding-question into the grounding-question." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 208) Das Da-sein steht in „Sein und Zeit" noch im Anschein des „Anthropologischen" und „Subjektivistischen" und „Individualistischen" u.s.f., und doch ist von allem das Gegenteil im blick; freilich nicht als das zuerst und nur Beabsichtigte, sondern dieses Gegenteilige überall nur als die notwendige Folge der entscheidenden Wandlung der „Seinsfrage" aus der Leitfrage in die Grundfrage. (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) (GA 65, p. 295). To fully develop this topic, Heidegger uses a interesting word to attempt to name the problem of "anthropological," the "subjectivistic," and the "individualistic," within his analysis of Da-sein in Being and Time, he says Da-sein stands in the 'shadow' the German word is ‚Anschein' and you can also translate it as appearance, semblance, facade, pretense, or charade. I am not sure the term 'shadow' really gets to the point. Heidegger is trying to pull away from the web of the subjective nature of an analysis of Da-sein and he is trying hard. Perhaps we should say too 'hard'. At some point, Heidegger has given this up as an inherent problem within Being and Time. If Being and Time is a Grundwerk and the Beiträge is a Hauptwerk, then both are trying to get past Leitfrage (guiding question) to the Grundfrage (grounding question). To use Descartes' 317 metaphor, we have to go back to the ground wherein the tree of metaphysics and philosophy is growing. Kant was pointing this direction with phrase of "the metaphysics of metaphysics". The movement toward "foundationalism" within philosophy and for Heidegger certainly within ontology. Although by the period of Beiträge this seems to be less and less of an issue with Heidegger. In other words, it has blended into the background. 17 Section 176. Da-sein: Elucidating the Word "In that meaning which is for the first time and essentially introduced in Being and Time (1927), this word [Da-sein] cannot be translated, i.e., it resists the perspectives of the hitherto existing ways of thinking and saying in Western history: Da sein."(Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 211) Section 176. Da-sein. Zur Erläuterung des Wortes In der Bedeutung, die „Sein und Zeit" erstmals und wesentlich ansetzt, ist dies Wort nicht zu übersetzen, d. h. es widersetzt sich den Hinsichten der bisherigen Denkund Sagensweise der abendländischen Geschichte: das Da sein. (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) (GA 65, p. 300). From the Zollikon Seminars we have a text as subsection entitled "November 23 and 26, 1965, at Boss's Home" in this we read an interesting remark (although it is not clear if this is really Heidegger or a report of a discussion) on the translation question of Da-sein. It says "To begin with the French existentialists also failed to pay attention to it. That is why they translated Da-sein in Being and Time as ètre-là, which means being here and not there....The appropriate French translation of Da-sein should be: Etre le là and the meaningful accentuation should be Da-sein in German instead of Dasein." (et. p. 120). In general is seems like Da-sein is concrete in Being and Time and seems to have changed in the Beiträge to a possibility. There seems to be a very vague link to Nietzsche's overman. This is such a central topic in Heidegger and he has continued to fight over his interpretation and many other philosophers' misinterpretations that this is beyond the aphorism. Da-sein is like Tao, Dao, logos, or you name any deep philosophical term that almost defines translation, but remains key to philosophy. For Heidegger all of the attempts to follow along with him have struck him how western philosophy cannot keep up with him. Right at the beginning of this whole text, Heidegger says, "This amounts to an essential transformation of the human from "rational animal" (animal rationale) to Da-sein." (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 3). Yes, this is the transformation that Heidegger is driving us toward. Utopian thinking shines here!! 18 318 "Time-space and "facticity" of Dasein (cf. Laufende Anmerkungen zu "Sein und Zeit" [GA 82], I, Kapitel 5!). (Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 259) Der Zeit-Raum und die „Faktizität" des Daseins (vgl. Laufende Anmerkungen zu „Sein und Zeit" I, Kapitel 5!). (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) (GA 65, p. 371). This is an example of Heidegger's clear reference to a text that is not published some sixty-four years later, and yet, Heidegger already knows the chapters (Kapitel). As a consequence, it does not seem like we will know for a while what this reference really means. One thing important to consider is that Heidegger's remarks about Being and Time in the Beiträge have come after this volume 82 was written, since inside the Beiträge he is making references to volume 82. See the following note about this text. GA 82 Zu eigenen Veröffentlichungen. According to GA-65 Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) this will include: Anmerkungen zu "Vom Wesen des Grundes" (1936), Eine Auseinandersetzung mit "Sein und Zeit" (1936), Laufende Anmerkungen zu "Sein und Zeit" (1935/1936). See also GA66 Besinnung (1938/39). This is Heidegger on Heidegger. When this appears it is expected to be widely read. Heidegger said about this project, "Auf diesen Entwurf geht alles zu und den Bereich dieser Besinnungen gehört auch die Eine Auseinandersetzung mit "Sein und Zeit". Diese Vorarbeiten sind immer neue Anläufe, um die Grundstellung für die Frage nach der Wahrheit des Seyns zu finden." (GA 66 Besinnung (1938/39) p.424). 19 "But man can belong to Seyn (not only among beings), insofar as he draws out of this belongingness – and precisely out of it – what is most originarily his ownmost: Man understands Seyn (cf. Being and Time (1927));"(Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis). et. p. 351) Der Mensch aber kann zum Seyn (nicht nur unter das Seiende) gehören, sofern er aus dieser Zugehörigkeit und gerade aus ihr sein ursprünglichstes Wesen schöpft: Der Mensch versteht das Seyn (vgl. „Sein und Zeit"). (Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) (GA 65, p. 499-500). Man understands Being. Man belongs to Being. Man is in the house of Being. Man does not just belong among beings or a group of beings or is just surround by things. Man lives in a bigger world than just groups of things or objects in our surrounds. Man is his belongingness. Yes. 319 Martin Heidegger as Interrogator What is the final hard rock of philosophy? Where is the quarry for philosophers? What is it about the human condition that leads a few to philosophy? For Heidegger, Da-sein is not as animal rationale, the reasoning animal, or the human being with reason (we are much more than this only). By using the expression Da-sein or Da-Sein, Heidegger then links the nature of humanity directly to the clearing and openness of Being. Humans are the being that is in the opening and is that special and unique relationship with the Being of beings. At the same time, Heidegger should have more directly tied Da-sein's nature to openness and the clearing that drives Da-sein to the questioning process, since without questioning there would be no Being question. Man is the questioning being in a finite world. At bottom, questioning comes from the essential and inner nature of humanity (for Heidegger that is Da-sein). The Being question is for Heidegger the ground of Da-sein and the single question for philosophy. Heidegger does not draw out the rest of the implications of the very nature of Da-sein of being open for questioning. Can we have questioning without somehow thinking that we need to use reason to answer the questions? Heidegger in Being and Time outlines the subtitle of the Introduction as "The Exposition of the Question of the Meaning of Being" (Die Exposition der Frage nach dem Sinn von Sein, and then he divides the two parts of Introduction. The first part of the Introduction is entitled: I. The Necessity, Structure, and Priority of the Questions of Being." And the second part is entitled: II. The Double Task in Working Out the Question of Being: The Method of the Investigation and Its Outline." These all point to the purpose of Being and Time which is often overlooked since the majority of the text is about the analytic of Dasein. The purpose of Being and Time is "raise anew the question of the meaning of Being". This is all about the "question" of the meaning of Being, but here the position is about how Heidegger views this central and fundamental "thesis" (what else can we call it, since the concepts are used up) as a "question". Heidegger is making us plainly aware that philosophy in Being and Time is about raising the "question". Note the strong emphasis on the 'question'. For Heidegger, philosophy is all about the 'question' and not just many ontic questions, but rather, it is the tracking of the single and sole question; namely, the meaning of Being or the truth of Being. Question: what is the truth of Being? Answer: temporality. Clearly, Heidegger is an ontologist. It is important to understand what Heidegger is doing. The question of the meaning of Being is his fundamental question in Being and Time and remained his primary matter for thought. In his work on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (GA32, lecture 1930), Heidegger says, " . . . the inner necessities of the first and last problem of philosophy the question of Being" and he continues, "I have been concerned with renewing the question of ontology the most central problem of Western Philosophy the question of Being . . ." (et.. p.13) 320 Additionally Heidegger says, "We assert now that Being is the proper and sole theme of philosophy" (Basic Problems of Phenomenology (GA24, 1927 lecture), p11). "Philosophy is the theoretical conceptual interpretation of Being, of Being's structure and its possibilities. Philosophy is ontological." (Basic Problems of Phenomenology (GA24, lecture 1927), p.11). Therefore, Heidegger has "a" question, which is the "the" question for him and philosophy. Heidegger in an important passage wrote in Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis) GA 65, "The question concerning the "meaning", i.e., in accordance with the elucidation in Being and Time, the question concerning grounding the domain of projecting-open – and then, the question of the truth of Seyn – is and remains my question, and is my one and only question; for this question concerns what is most sole and unique (Section 4)." This ties together his two major writing projects – note I hesitate to call them "works" or even "books" or some kind of final philosophical statements. Even note the emphasis within this passage and the use of the word "my", since Heidegger is pointing out his own essential question (but note this is not just Heidegger's personal question). Although Heidegger is fixated and obsessed on one question, he makes an important and crucial point about the nature of philosophy itself. Philosophy is a seeking (ontological not ontic). Heidegger says in Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis) GA 65, "This goal is the seeking itself" (Section 5) and he continues a little further down in the text where he says, "Seeking itself is the goal" (Section 5). Later in the text Heidegger places great emphasis in the following passage, "Whoever seeks has already found!" Note that it is italicized and with an exclamation point. This is not an ontic seeking of getting milk at the store, but rather being in a state of seeking and questioning (which for Heidegger is Being and Ereignis). We are not searching for something and then representing that thing in thinking, nor are we seeking to use logic to formulate a logical proof. Philosophy is seeking. This seeking is a questioning and that means a radical questioning even to the point of how humans can question anything. Man is the questioning being. How is Man open to the world as a questioner? Man is the Interrogator! Heidegger as philosopher certainly has made it clear that for him philosophy is the opening up and thinking through "questioning". Heidegger has defined his project in terms of the question about meaning or truth of Being. His early formulation of the question about the meaning (Sinn) of Being (1927) may sound too much on the subjective side of what Being "means" to a person; hence, his later development of the question as the "truth" of Being and the Wesen of Being (Das Wesen des Seyns). For Heidegger the question echoes. Note: this is not a series of questions, but rather, the one, sole, unique and only question that is important enough to be worthy of being the question for philosophers. The following quoted passages (with section numbers) are all from Contributions to Philosophy (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) GA 65. 321 Section 1 (GA 65) "Contributions to Philosophy enact a questioning along a pathway which is first traced out by the crossing to the other beginning, into which Western thinking is now entering." This ties together the purpose and intention of the whole project, which Heidegger calls, with the public title of the Contributions to Philosophy. Today, Western thinking is entering a new other beginning to philosophy. The purpose of this project is enact a "questioning" (we know the direction of the questioning – Seyn and Ereignis). Before Section 1 on the first page of the text, Heidegger calls this venture an "attempt" and he follows that up with the remark that "Future thinking is a thinking that is underway." (et. p. 3). Philosophy is a questioning pathway that is an attempt that is underway. Remember at the front of the Heidegger's Gesamtausgabe, he wrote "Pathways– not works". This is not a transitional philosophical work that has nothing to say about truth. We can say that Heidegger's philosophical stance is "questioning". In the 1950s, Heidegger said, "I am writing all of this in the form of questions; for, as far as I can see, thinking can today do more than to continually ponder what evoked in the said questions." (On The Question of Being, Letter to Ernst Jünger, "Zur Seinsfrage (1955) / Über die Linie" in GA 9 Pathmarks et. p.306). ("Ich schreibe dies alles in der Form von Fragen; denn mehr vermag heute, soweit ich sehe, ein Denken nicht, als unablässig eig das zu bedenken, was die angeführten Fragen hervorruft."). Note this was published in Heidegger's lifetime in a number of places. He obviously thought this letter and what he was saying here was important for people to understand Heidegger. Section 4 (GA 65) "So that this attempt turns into an impetus, the wonder of enactment of questioning must be experienced and made effective for awakening and strengthening the force of questioning." What does it mean to think about the "force of questioning"? Heidegger has radically changed the nature of philosophy forevermore with the force of his questioning about the truth of Being. Wonder started the first beginning with the Greeks. Out of wondering comes questioning and we can question the nature of wondering. Alternatively, in other words, we can wonder about wonder as such. What is the nature of the "question? We make a point: question the question! Section 4 (GA 65) "In the age of total lack of questioning anything, it is sufficient as a start to inquire into the question of all questions." This is about the total lack of ontological questioning. What time is it? When do I have to go to work? Versus: what is the nature of time itself? Of course, the "question of all questions" is simply the question about the truth of Being (Seyn). I do not think that Heidegger wants to rank questions with values, for example, which is the best question; but rather, what is the sole question for philosophy – the truth of Being. 322 "Question is here beginning and end." (Section 222). The alpha and omega of philosophy is not freedom, but rather "questioning". We do not get further down the road by ending with metaphysical statements about the world; then constructing a system and coming to a final philosophical position about the world. The system is now complete and done. Heidegger is contra systems like this, since for him the task of philosophy is the process of questioning. Perhaps the clearest position is when Heidegger is contra Hegel. Hegel constructed a complete metaphysical system and included the methodology in the soul of the system itself. Hegel's system is the highest point of metaphysics. However, with Hegel, there are very few open questions – the system gives the "answers". In a sense, for Heidegger, if you have "answers", then you are creating either a metaphysical system or a worldview. More recently, Heidegger sees the way philosophers and others wanted to create a worldview based on 'facts' and call that philosophy. The worldview approach is all wrong. Section 258 (GA 65) "...not into just any question but rather into questioning what is most question-worthy." Our question: what is most question-worthy? What is important to ask about? Not how to increase your latest stock holdings, but what is a question for all of humanity? What is the necessity of philosophical questioning? Can we take it or leave it? There is no necessity in determining logical proof. However, the ontological question drives philosophers or is it pulls philosophers and thinkers toward the question of the truth of Being. Section 265 (GA 65) Thinking (1) on the one hand is meant as the name of the manner of questioning and thus in general for the manner of relating the questioning relation of man to the Being of beings, that is thinking in the sense (Sinn) of the basic posture of the "thinker" (the philosopher) (thinking as questioning the question of being). Das Denken (1) ist einmal gemeint als Name für die Art des Fragens und damit überhaupt die Art der Beziehung der fragenden Beziehung des Menschen zum Sein des Seienden, dass Denken im Sinne der Grundhaltung des »Denkers« (des Philosophen) (Denken als Fragen der Seinsfrage). This is an important passage for how to understand Heidegger and what is "living" in Heidegger's philosophy. Thinking is questioning! Ok, thinking is questioning about the Being question. In terms of Being and Time (1927), Heidegger would talk about the Dasein being open to possibilities. Possibilities are what makes questioning possible. The basic nature of the philosopher is to think about Being-question. Yes, philosophy is more than just ontology for school philosophers, but for Heidegger there is only question, one way to do philosophy, and one way for thinkers and one matter for thought – Being. Heidegger used the term "Beziehung", that is, relationship. Our relationship to Being and our question about the relationship between man as philosopher with the Being of beings. 323 Heidegger points toward this relationship, but he also is opening this as asking and questioning this relationship. 324 CONCLUSION This is a very general conclusion to the whole "text". The text here is not a "book"or a philosophical "work"in the traditional sense of the concept of a"book"and hence there can no true conclusion to such a body of philosophical thinking and writing. Nietzsche said "One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil. And why do you want to pluck at my wreath? " "Now I bid you lose me and find yourseleves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you. Verily, my brothers, with different eyes shall I then seek my lost ones; with a different love shall I then love you. "(Thus Spoke Zarathustra, "On the GiftGiving Virtue"section 3). There are no final conclusions only an interpretation of what a conclusion might be mean to the previous text. How can we conclude when we did not state a thesis or is this just an anti-thesis to some un-stated thesis? We need Hegel's contradiction to state metaphysical speculative thinking. Perhaps you wanted some thing more scholarly with footnotes and clear explication of Heidegger and Nietzsche, if that is the case you did not read this text but jumped to the end to get the just the final nuggets of truth. Well I guess you should know now that this will not work with this text – since philosophical thinking is not that kind of progress. There is no need to rush to publication and get the results out to the public. Philosophizing is not about getting to the end and seeing what the final results are for the public. The path and the seeking is in the process. There are no proper methods at work here. The final standard of truth is how we have brought your thinking and questioning to a new place and your homelessness is perhaps a little less a burden on your life. The use of simple reason and common sense for philosophy is no philosophy at all. You need to do better than that. Can I conclude with reason and arguments that there is no conclusion for you? Did I slip something by you and now you realize that the truth is going to be given over as desert on plate? Answer: yes. Read a book without an end and you will get the idea. How can there be a telos here at the end of this text? Your hidden eschatology of reading a "book"is given. Draw your own conclusions and if you must, then write them down for the rest of us. 325 Literature and General References Primary Literature: Hegel, Heidegger, Kant, Nietzsche Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) General collections: Gesammelte Werke Rheinisch-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, ed., (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1968-). Werke in zwanzig Bänden Moldenhauer, Eva and Michel, Karl Markus, ed., (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1971). Specific books: Hegel's Philosophy of Right Translated by T. M. Knox. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967. Hegel, the letters Translated by Clark Butler and Christiane Seiler; with commentary by Clark Butler. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. Hegel's Science of logic Translated [from the German] by A. V. Miller London, Allen & Unwin; New York, Humanities Press, 1969. Translation of Wissenschaft der Logik (1812/1813, 1816, 1832). Lectures on the history of philosophy Translated from the German by E.S. Haldane [and Frances H. Simson] London: Routledge & Paul New York: Humantities Press, 1963. Translation of Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie Phänomenologie des Geistes (1807) [Earlier title: Wissenschaft der Erfahrung des Bewusstseins] Phenomenology of spirit Translated by A. V. Miller. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977. Martin Heidegger (1889-1976): 326 Gesamtausgabe (GA) = collected writings. Ausgabe letzter Hand Wege nicht Werke General order is by volume number of Gesamtausgabe. This is a selected list of materials just used in this book. 1 Frühe Schriften (1912-1916) Das Realitätsproblem in der modernen Philosophie (1912) Die Lehre vom Urteil im Psychologismus (1914) Die Kategorienund Bedeutungslehre des Duns Scotus (1916) Die Zeitbegriff in der Geschichtswissenschaft (1916) Ed .F.-W. von Herrmann, 1978, XII, 454p. GA 2 Sein und Zeit (1927) Herausgegeben von Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann, 1977, Being and Time Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper & Row, 1978. Being and Time Translated by Joan Stambaugh. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. 3 Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (1929) Ed. F.-W. von Herrmann, 1991, XVIII, 318p. Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (GA3) Translated by Richard Taft. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. GA 5 Holzwege (1935-1946) Der Ursprung der Kunstwerkes (1935-1936) Die Zeit des Weltbildes (1938) Hegels Begriff der Erfahrung (1942-1943) Nietzsches Wort 'Gott ist tot' (1943) Wozu Dichter? (1946) Der Spruch der Anaximander (1946) Ed. F.-W. von Herrmann, 1977, VI, 382p. Off The Beaten Track Edited and Translated by Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes. Cambridge, U.K.; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 327 6.1 Nietzsche I (1936-1939) Der Wille zur Macht als Kunst (1936-37) Die ewige Wiederkehr des Gleichen (1937) Der Wille zur Macht als Erkenntnis (1939) Ed. B. Schillbach, 1996, XIV, 596p. 6.2 Nietzsche II (1939-1946) Der europäische Nihilismus (1940) Nietzsches Metaphysik (1940) Die seinsgeschichtliche Bestimmung des Nihilismus (1944-1946) Entwürfe zur Geschichte des Seins als Metaphysik (1941) Die Erinnerung an die Metaphysik (1941) Ed. B. Schillbach, 1997, VIII, 454p. Recollection in Metaphysics is in: The End of Philosophy Translated by Joan Stambaugh. New York: Harper & Row, 1973. Pre-Gesamtausgabe Edition Nietzsche Volume 1 and 2. Zweiter Band. Zweite Auflage. Pfullingen: Verlag Günther Neske, 1961. Nietzsche I: The Will to Power as Art Edited and Translated by David F. Krell. New York: Harper & Row, 1979. Nietzsche II: The Eternal Recurrence of the Same Edited and Translated by David F. Krell. New York: Harper & Row, 1984. Nietzsche III: The Will to Power as Knowledge and Metaphysics Edited by David F. Krell, translated by Joan Stambaugh. New York: Harper & Row, 1987. Nietzsche IV: Nihilism Edited by David F. Krell translated by Frank A. Capuzzi. New York: Harper & Row, 1982. 8 Was heisst Denken? (1951-1952) Ed. Paola-Ludovika Coriando. 2002. VIII-271 Seiten, pages. 271 p.; 21 cm What is called thinking? 328 With an introd. by J. Glenn Gray. New York: Harper & Row, 1968. 9 Wegmarken (1919-1961) Anmerkungen zu Karl Jaspers "Psychologie der Weltanschauungen" (1919-1921) Phänomenologie und Theologie (1927) Aus den letzten Marburger Vorlesung (1928) Was ist Metaphysik? (1927) Vom Wesen des Grundes (1929) Vom Wesen der Wahrheit (1930) Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit (1931-1932) Vom Wesen und Begriff der PHYSIS. Aristoteles, Physik B, 1 (1939) Nachwort zu "Was ist Metaphysik" (1943) Brief über den "Humanismus" (1946) Einleitung zu "Was ist Metaphysik?". Der Rückgang in den Grund der metaphysik (1949) Zur Seinsfrage (1955) / Über die Linie Hegel und die Griechen (1958) Kants These über das sein (1961) Ed. F.-W. von Herrmann, 1976, 1996, X, 488p. Pathmarks (GA9) Edited by William McNeill. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. The Question of Being Note: Letter to Ernst Jünger, "Zur Seinsfrage (1955) / Über die Linie" in GA 9 Wegmarken. 24 Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie (Sommersemester 1927). Ed. F.-W. von Herrmann, 1975, X, 474p. Basic Problems of Phenomenology (GA24) Translated by Albert Hofstadter. Bloomington, Indiana: University Press, 1982. This is a lecture course presented at the University of Marburg during summer semester 1927. 26 Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz (Sommersemester 1928). Ed. K.Held, 1978, VI, 292p. The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic (GA 26) Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. 329 GA 31 Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit Einleitung in die Philosophie (Sommersemester 1930). Ed. H. Tietjen, 1982, 1994, XII, 308 p. GA 32 Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes (Wintersemester 1930/31). Ed. I. Görland, 1980, VIII, 224p. Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit Translated by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1988. 33 Aristoteles, Metaphysik J 1-3. Von Wesen und Wirklichkeit der Kraft (Sommersemester 1931). Ed. H. Hüni, 1981, VIII, 228p. GA 42 Schelling: Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit (1809) (Sommersemester 1936). Ed. I. Schüssler, 1988, X, 290p. Please note there is also: Schelling Abhandlung uber das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit Published by Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag 1971. Schelling's Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom Translated by Joan Stambaugh. Based on 1971 edition. Athens, Ohio: University Press, 1984. Written in 1936 with notes added from 1941. Grundfragen der Philosophie. Ausgewählte 'Probleme' der 'Logik' [Vorlesung] See: GA 45 Grundfragen der Philosophie. Ausgewählte "Probleme" der "Logik" (Winter semester 1937/38). Ed. F.-W. von Herrmann, 1984, XIV, 234p. Basic Questions of Philosophy: Selected "Problems" of "Logic" Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1994. The other Beginning (Anfang) Notes related to GA 45. Scholarship note: the expression "other beginning" or "other commencement" ("anderen Anfang") appears in Martin Heidegger's Nietzsche volumes. For example, Nietzsche I, g. p. 259, 470, 480, 626, 657. Nietzsche II, g. p. 29. It appears that Heidegger first expressed the task of the new, other beginning in the lectures series Grundfragen der Philosophie. Ausgewählte 'Probleme' der 'Logik' GA 45. Winter Semester 1937-1938). For example, German p. 196-197, et. p.169. See in general the section entitled "From the first draft." ("Aus dem ersten Entwurf"). Heidegger says for example, "We understand or, to put it more prudently, we surmise that our historical moment is that of the preparation for the other beginning." (GA 45, g. p. 200-202, et. p. 172). 330 GA 65 Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1939) I. Vorblick / II. Der Anklang / III. Das Zuspiel / IV. Der Sprung / V. Die Gründung, a) Da-Sein und Seinsentwurf, b) Das Da-sein, c) Das Wesen der Wahrheit, d) Der ZeitRaum als der Ab-grund, e) Die Wesung der Wahrheit als Bergung / VI. Die Zu-künftigen / VII. Der letzte Gott / VIII. Das Seyn. Ed. F.-W. von Herrmann, 1989, XVI, 522p. Contributions to Philosophy. From Enowning (GA 65) Translated by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. GA 66 Besinnung (1938/39) First Edition, 1997. Beilage zu Wunsch und Wille (Über die Bewahrung des Veruschten) Section 7. "Vom Ereignis" "Diese "Beiträge zur Philosophie" sollen in einem neuen Anlauf die Weite der Seinsfrage sichtbar machen; hier gilt nicht die Ausfaltung im Einzelnen, weil diese allzu leicht den eigentlichen Gesichtskreis verengt und den Grundzug des Fragens verlieren lässt. Noch aber ist auch hier nicht die Form erreicht, die ich für eine Veröffentlichung als "Werk" gerade hier fordere; denn hier muss sich der neue Stil des Denkens kundgeben die Verhaltenheit in der Wahrheit des Seyns; das Sagen des Erschweigens GA 68 Hegel 1. Die Negativität (1938/39) 2. Erläuterung der "Einleitung" zu Hegels "Phänomenologie des Geistes" (1942) Ed. Ingrid Schüssler, 1993, X, 154p. GA 70 Über den Anfang (1941) I. Die Anfängnis des Anfangs / II. Anfang und das anfängliche Denken / III. Ereignis und Da-sein / IV. Bemerkungen über das Auslegen / V. Die Seynsgeschichte / VI. Sein und Zeit und das anfängliche Denken als Geschichte des Seyns. Ed. Paola-Ludovika Coriando. Not yet published. GA 71 Das Ereignis (1941/42) Vorworte / Der erste Anfang / Der Anklang / Der Unterschied / Die Verwindung / Das Ereignis. Der Wortschatz seines Wesens / Das Ereignis / Das Ereignis und das Menschenwesen / Das Daseyn / Der andere Anfang / Weisungen in das Ereignis / Das seynsgeschichtliche Denken (Dichten und Denken) Ed. F.-W. von Herrmann. Not yet published. GA 72 Die Stege des Anfangs (1944) 331 Ed. F.-W. von Herrmann. Not yet published. GA 73 Zum Ereignis-Denken (1937) Die Aletheia: Die Erinnergung in den ersten Anfang; Entmachtung der logos (1937). Das Da-Sein. Wahrheitsfrage als Vorfrage. Not yet published. GA 80 Vorträge (1915-1967) Hegel und das Problem der Metaphysik (Vortrag in der wissenschaftlichen Vereinigung zu Arnsterdam 22. März 1930. Not yet published. GA 82 Zu eigenen Veröffentlichungen According to GA-65 Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) this will include: Anmerkungen zu "Vom Wesen des Grundes" (1936), Eine Auseinandersetzung mit "Sein und Zeit" (1936), Laufende Anmerkungen zu "Sein und Zeit" (1935/1936). Not yet published. GA 94 Überlegungen A. [II-VI] GA 95 Überlegungen B. [VII-XI] GA 96 Überlegungen C. [XII-XV] Not yet published. Additional materials. Der Spiegel Interview (Martin Heidegger) (Interview date September 23,1966) Republished: Der Spiegel 46/2002. pages 136-145. Original Der Spiegel publications date: 31 May 1976 Zollikon seminars : protocols, conversations, letters Edited by Medard Boss; translated from the German with notes and afterwords by Franz Mayr and Richard Askay. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2001. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) Correspondence Translated and edited by Arnulf Zweig. Cambridge, U.K.; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 332 Critique of pure reason Translated and edited by Paul Guyer, Allen W. Wood. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Prolegomena to any future metaphysics that will be able to come forward as science Translated and edited, with selections from the Critique of pure reason, by Gary Hatfield. Cambridge [England]; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Lectures on logic Translated and edited by J. Michael Young. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Lectures on metaphysics Translated and edited by Karl Ameriks and Steve Narago. Cambridge [England]; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786) Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970. What Real Progress has Metaphysics Made in Germany Since the Time of Leibniz and Wolff? Kant wrote this work in 1793. The German title is: Welches sind die wirklichen Fortschritte, die Metaphysik seit Leibnizens und Wolffs Zeiten in Deutschland gemacht hat? New York: Abaris Books, 1983. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) 1873 Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik 1873 Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen 1880 Der Wanderer und sein Schatten 1882 Die fröhliche Wissenschaft: ("la gaya scienza") 1883-1891 Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen 1886 Jenseits von Gut und Böse: Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft 1887 Zur Genealogie der Moral 1888 Der Antichrist: Fluch auf das Christenthum 1888 Der Fall Wagner: Ein Musikanten-Problem 1888 Nietzsche contra Wagner 1896 Götzendämmerung: oder Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophirt First published 1901. Der Wille zur Macht: Versuch einer Umwerthung aller Werthe (Studien und Fragmente). 1908 Ecce Homo: Wie man wird, was man ist General collections: 333 Martin Heidegger usually used this edition of Nietzsche works: Grossoktavausgabe Nietzsches Werke. (GOA). Leipzig: Kröner, 1901-1913. 16 Volumes. Vols. 9-14 have imprint: Leipzig, C. G. Naumann, 1901-1904. The most recent edition of Nietzsche works are called Kritische Gesamtausgabe or the complete title is: Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Editors, Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, vols., Berlin, DeGruyter, 1967-. (KGW). Vol. 30+ Sämtliche Werke, Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden [Sigle: KSA], hg. von Giorgio Colli und Mazzino Montinari. München und New York, 1980. Musarion edition of Gesammelte Werke (pub. 1920-29) = MGW English Ecce Homo Translated by Walter Kaufmann; edited, with commentary, by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books, 1967. The Gay science; with a prelude in rhymes and an appendix of songs Translated, with commentary, by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Random House, 1974. The Portable Nietzsche Translated by Walter Kaufmann New York: Viking Press, 1968. The pre-Platonic philosophers Translated from the German and edited, with an introduction and commentary, by Greg Whitlock. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001. Selected letters of Friedrich Nietzsche Edited and translated by Christopher Middleton. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969. Twilight of the idols, or, How to philosophize with a hammer Translated with an introduction and notes by Duncan Large. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. The Use and abuse of history New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1957. 334 The Will to power A new translation by Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale. New York: Random House, 1967. Additional authors Aristotle. The metaphysic With an English translation by Hugh Tredennick. Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London: W. Heinemann, 1947. Franz Clemens Brentano's (1838-1917) dissertation. On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle Edited and translated by Rolf George. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975. Theodore J. Kisiel The genesis of Heidegger's Being and time Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) Rules for the Direction of the Mind (published 1751) Latin title: Regulae ad directionem ingenii Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952. Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) Principles of Philosophy of the Future (1843) Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832). Werther The sorrows of young Werther London: The Scholartis press, 1929. Heraclitus Fragments: the collected wisdom of Heraclitus Translated by Brooks Haxton New York: Viking, 2001. Hippocrates (460-377 BC). Aphorism written in 400 BC 335 Hippocrates With an English translation by W.H.S. Jones. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press; London: W. Heinemann, 1923-1931,1972. Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) Hyperion; or, The hermit in Greece Translated by Willard R. Trask New York: New American Library, 1965. Edmund Husserl (1859-1938). The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970. (Psychological and transcendental phenomenology and the confrontation with Heidegger (1927-1931) : the Encyclopaedia Britannica article, the Amsterdam lectures, "Phenomenology and anthropology," and Husserl's marginal notes in Being and time, and Kant and the problem of metaphysics / Edmund Husserl. edited and translated by Thomas Sheehan and Richard E. Palmer. Dordrecht, Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1997. Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) was giving three lectures on this topic: Existenzphilosophie: drei Vorlesungen gehalten am Freien Deutschen Hochstift in Frankfurt a. M., September 1937. Philosophy of existence Translated and with an introduction by Richard F. Grabau. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971. Ernst Jünger (1895-1998). 1934 Über den Schmerz (On Pain or On Agony – possible English translations). In: Blätter und Steine. Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1934. Friedrich Albert Lange (1828-1875). See his work The history of materialism and criticism of its present importance London: Routledge & K. Paul. 1950. Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr Von Leibniz (1646-1716). Principles of Nature and of Grace, Based on Reason. (Written 1714) In: Philosophical essays Edited and translated by Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co., 1989 Mao Tse-tung. (1893-1976) Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967. 336 Karl Marx (1818-1883). Theses On Feuerbach, written spring of 1845. Marx/Engels Selected Works, Volume One, p. 13 – 15 Moscow, USSR: Progress Publishers, 1969 Parmenides A text with translation, commentary, and critical essays, by Leonardo Tarán. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965. Plato's Sophist Republic Symposium The Dialogues of Plato Translated into English with analyses and introductions, by B. Jowett. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Von Schelling (1775-1854) The philosophy of art Edited, translated, and introduced by Douglas W. Stott. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. Other title: Schelling's treatise on the essence of human freedom Treatise. (1807). Schelling: Of human freedom Translation of F. W. J. Schelling's Philosophische untersuchungen über das wesen der menschlichen freiheit und die damit zusammenhängenden gegenstände, with a critical introduction and notes, by James Gutmann. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company, 1936. Oswald Spengler (1880-1936). Decline of the West New York: A. A. Knopf, 1946. Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). Philosophical Investigations (circa 1949) Translation by G.E.M. Anscombe. New York: MacMillan Company, 1953. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus New York: Harcourt, Brace & company, inc.; London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1947. *My life and my destiny is "non legor, non legar". "I am not read, I will not be read."