The Secular Frontier

This is my final post on Heidegger's reading of Hölderlin's Hymn The Ister in the lecture course of 1942. The measure of truth in Hölderlin’s river poetry is not found in the actuality of the geographical river, Hölderlin saying “Is there a measur ... Read Article

I’ve been working to uncover the tragic insight into the human condition that Heidegger finds in Sophocles’ Antigone – in the tradition of Hölderlin’s translation and interpretation.  This is the arche tamechana, that against which nothing can a ... Read Article

*This post finishes up party 2 of Heidegger's lecture course. The Parable of Vengeance   Mr. X and Mr. Y were parents of a boyfriend and girlfriend who were killed by a drunk driver.  Mr. X showed up every day for the trial, demanded justi ... Read Article

Last time I did a standalone post on William Lane Craig and the Kalam Cosmological argument, but now back to Heidegger’s interpretation of Holderlin. Looking on to section 15, Heidegger draws a distinction between kalon and me kalon, “non beings / ... Read Article

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeKavDdRVIg My former professor and friend, the late Canadian postmodern philosopher David Goicoechea, gave this assessment of philosophy since Kierkegaard and Nietzsche in the Continental (as opposed to Analytic) trad ... Read Article

One point that needs to be stressed is Heidegger's thought of man as transitionally historical. For example, in this lecture course that was delivered at the height of the Nazi movement in 1942, Heidegger notes the central concepts of polis and apolis in ... Read Article

Manifold is the uncanny, yet nothing more uncanny looms or stirs beyond the human being (Sophocles Antigone, Heidegger's translation) I’m now into part 2/3 of Heidegger’s lecture course on Holderlin’s Hymn The Ister and we find out one of the r ... Read Article

The modern scientific world picture is ever refining the mathematical technical projection of inanimate nature, order as calculable and ordered relationality posited in advance.  Heidegger comments Already in the last century, philosophy clearly ... Read Article

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg1di8sGxWc We've been approaching Hölderlin's talk of gods and their abandoning in an essential way, not merely relying on Hölderlin's text nor secondary literature on Hölderlin. What is demanded, rather is orient ... Read Article

Parmenides famously said, "apprehension and Being are the same," and Heidegger quipped (I think in his Parmenides lecture course from the 40's) such a thought makes you lose the desire to write books if you really understand it, which becomes obvious when ... Read Article

Hölderlin’s rivers are not symbolic images of a higher level or a deeper religious content.  They are not a placeholder for already familiar existing German essence and life.  Hölderlin’s hymnal poetry after 1799 was not concerned with symbolic im ... Read Article

I noted in my previous article on Hölderlin’s poem “Remembrance” that the modern university is metaphysical in Plato’s sense.  We might see two political science students debate the abortion issue using two equally illustrative but mutually excl ... Read Article

The Island https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apD1IuE5Lwo The Cape Breton Liberation Army (CBLA) is a fictional entity born out of a satirical comic series called Old Trout Funnies, created by artist Paul "Moose" MacKinnon in the 1970s. This homegrow ... Read Article

This is a transcript of a conversation between a teacher (me, John) and Grok 3 AI John: Hi Grok 3. Want to do some creative and critical thinking? Grok 3: Hey there! Absolutely, I’m up for some creative and critical thinking. What’s on your min ... Read Article

"The Roman word res designates that which concerns somebody, ... that which is pertinent, which has a bearing ... In Enghsh 'thing' has still preserved the full semantic power of the Roman word: 'He knows his things,' he understands the matters that have ... Read Article

Ever-beautiful youth, before it withers (Holderlin, The Death of Empedocles) One point on the poem is it is not to be read as imagery combine with indication in the poem about how to interpret the imagery. [I]t presents difficulties and in t ... Read Article

“[T]he closed essence of the universe contains no force which could withstand the courage of cognition; it must open up before it, and afford it the spectacle and enjoyment of its riches and its depths. (Hegel 1818).”  Heidegger comments: ... Read Article

I would like here to conclude my thoughts on Hölderlin’s poem Germania. It is not the case, as is popularly thought, that Parmenides taught the One while Heraclitus taught the many, since Heraclitus too taught the One.  So, for example, we gave the ... Read Article

Husserl noted we never leave the present.  The past was a past present and the future will be a future present.  This moves forward as clock time.  On the other hand, as I observed in my master’s thesis on Heidegger and the Greeks (2002, pg 10), ther ... Read Article

*NOTE:  If I update a post I put a note in the comment section, so just hit refresh! Last series I looked at Heidegger’s interpretation of Holderlin’s poem Germania in terms of re-thinking Greek Philosophy.  Specifically, we looked at Heide ... Read Article

(Hölderlin by Franz Carl Hiemer, 1792) Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (20 March 1770 – 7 June 1843) was a German poet and philosopher. Described by Norbert von Hellingrath as "the most German of Germans", Hölderlin was a key figure of Ge ... Read Article

“The name of the bow is life [βίος], its work, however, death” [the most extreme opposites of beyng together in one]. Heraclitus, fragment 48 Hegel, on page 26 of the Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, his first major work, and at t ... Read Article

Much have humans experienced. Named many of the heavenly, Since we are a dialogue And can hear from one another. (Holderlin) We noted last time that we operate in and out of contexts, e.g., the spirit of the age or the human condition, noti ... Read Article

(1) “Nothing is certain but death and taxes. (Benjamin Franklin)” (2) Carpe Diem! (“Seize the day:” Horace Odes [Book 1, Poem 11], where he writes, "Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero," which means "Seize the day, put no trust in tomor ... Read Article

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNaKCkorw5M Have you ever asked yourself who you really are, with all your distractions stripped away, sitting in the corner facing the wall in a Time-Out? Last time we looked at restlessness with Sophocles, Holderlin ... Read Article