The Secular Frontier

Heidegger notes regarding phusis that when we see the Van Gogh that “this is art” or the circling bird of prey “this is nature,” as though artness and natureness was present incarnate in the beings (Pa, phusis, 212).”  More to the point with Heraclitus, beingness emerges as the being conceals in its emergence, “the animal through whose swaying and hovering the free dimension of the open unfolds, and through whose singing and the tidings the call and the enchantment unfold, so that its bird essence whiles away and disperses in the open (72).”  Let's relate this to thinking. Kant said “to no thing belongs a predicate that contradicts it,” and so so called enlightened thinking basically goes about trying to find contradictions.  Heraclitus says “Emerging to self-concealing gives favor.”  Heidegger notes: With this discovery of the contradiction, one obtains the longed-for superiority over the thinker: one finds him ‘illogical.’  One ‘finds much’ in that fact: an ... Read Article

Thales is a step back from life, not caught up in the everyday and so falls in a well while thinking, and the Thracian slave girl laughs at him. Heidegger argues (FCM, 183) all creative action resides in a mood of melancholy, whether we are clearly aware of this fact or not, whether we speak at length about it or not. All creative action resides in a mood of melancholy, but this is not to say that everyone in a melancholic mood is creative. Aristotle already recognized this connection between creativity and melancholia when he asked the question: “Why is it that all those men who have achieved exceptional things, whether in philosophy, in politics, in poetry, or in the arts, are clearly melancholies? (Problemata 30.1)” Aristotle explicitly mentions Empedocles, Socrates and Plato in this context.  As a creative and essential activity of human life, philosophy stands in the fundamental attunement of melancholy. This melancholy concerns the form rather than the content of philosophizing, but it nece ... Read Article

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1z7LhlFf8A ... Read Article

We’ve been thinking about “to on,” the participle which is simultaneously the nominative/substantive “the being” and the verbal “being.”  We saw with Plato’s Gorgias that with the beautiful thing beauty is present as the usual Greek way to understand being.  This was then more fully shown as movement (Aristotle) or appearing, and so the mansion appears as houseness incarnate, houseness is merely present in the average house, and is deficient in the dilapidated shack.  Varying degrees of beauty is how being presences.  “Merely present” means “present at hand,” so if it is a question as to whether the hammer has a red handle, we appeal to the hammer “at-hand.”  We also noted for Protagoras man is the measure of all things, or as Homer says the gods don’t appear to everyone in their fullness.  So, Niagara Falls may appear as a wonder of the world to a tourist, and as noise pollution to the local resident.  A person may find the mansion gaudy and the shack quaint.  This is h ... Read Article

There are 2 famous stories about Heraclitus The first famous story about Heraclitus involves him at a stove or oven, where he is said to have been warming himself. According to Diogenes Laërtius in his "Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers," some visitors came upon Heraclitus while he was at the stove: "They say that some strangers came to visit him and, finding him warming himself by the stove, stood hesitating whether to approach him. Seeing this, Heraclitus invited them to come in, saying, 'Even here the gods are present.'" This is quite the contrast with Thales we looked at previously who was oblivious to the present and fell into a well while thinking.  Heraclitus is at home with the simplicity of the hearth.   Heidegger is able to connect Heraclitus' fire with the lustrous radiance ofthe gold of Pindar, "[t]he hearth is the site of being-homely ... Latin vesta is the Roman name for the goddess of the hearth fire ... para: alongside - beside, or more precisely, in the sphere of the ... Read Article

“We call those thinkers who think in the region of the inception ‘the inceptional [arche, 18] thinkers.’  There are only three such thinkers: Anaximander, Parmenides, and Heraclitus (Heidegger, Heraclitus, 4).” Heidegger considers Anaximander, Parmenides, and Heraclitus as the thinkers at the inception of Western Philosophy. I have previously posted about Anaximander and Parmenides. I will now look at Heidegger's 1943/44 lecture course on Heraclitus. As a beginning: We have stories that the people come to see Heraclitus to see something extraordinary, him thinking in profundity, so that they can engage in entertaining chatter about him, but instead find him warming himself at the stove saying "here too the gods are present."  They don’t want Heraclitus’s insights, but just to say they were in the presence of a thinker celebrity.  The gods presence or appear at the stove, and only here, in the inconspicuousness of the everyday.  Another story is Heraclitus at the temple of Artemi ... Read Article

Why are you so petrified of silence? Here can you handle this?  Did you think about your bills, you ex, your deadlines?  Or when you think you're going to die? Or did you long for the next distraction? All I Really Want (by Alanis Morissette) This is in fact the case: for the polis, still thought in a Greek way, is the pole and the site around which all appearing of essential beings, and with it also the dreadful non-essence of all beings, turns (Heidegger, Heraclitus Lecture Course, 1943-44, pg 11) I spoke previously about the polis and the fleeting nature of what is prized in it, the current, so I’ll leave the above two quotes as they stand. In ancient Greek poetry, the concept of the afterlife was often depicted through the idea of the underworld, or Hades. The shades, or psūkhaí (ψυχαί), which were the spirits or souls of the deceased, indeed wandered in this realm. When Odysseus visits the underworld in Book 11, he encounters numerous shades of the dead. Th ... Read Article

Parmenides said “for the same is apprehending as well as Being.”  Apprehending is a translation of the Greek word noein, to “take” into sight (to look it over or “take” it into consideration).  We operate in this while not normally seeing it as conspicuous, but as I said this is outlined when it breaks down.  For example, when I try to “take” movement “as” fractional, it breaks down.  In order to travel a distance, I must first make it halfway.  But, to make it to that middle I must first make it halfway to that middle, and so on to infinity.  This paradox where the sameness of apprehending and Being breaks down shows us the normal state of human comportment is apprehending and Being are the same.  I talked previously how our basic stance toward the world is “taking-as.”  We don’t see this directly, but it is made conspicuous when the process breaks down.  Heidegger gives the example in at least 2 lecture courses including this one of ... Read Article

This is my second of two background pieces on Being that will prepare us to follow Heidegger along Parmenides's path. An understanding of Being is necessary for us to “encounter” beings “as such,” for them to make us happy, weigh on us in a troubled manner, sustain us, be interrogated by us or occupy us in any way:  We could not wish a being to not be for how could we do this without an understanding of being and not being?  An understanding of Being is needed for questioning, interrogating beings in terms of if they are and what they are.  Experiencing Nothingness (not-Being), too, requires an understanding of Being.  Being is traditionally divided into essence “whatness” and existence “howness,” and so we might say a table is brown in terms of what it is, and badly positioned and exists in terms of how or the "manner" in which it is.  Existence means present at hand, and so if we are questioning as to whether the table exists or not we appeal to it at hand.&nb ... Read Article

I’ve moved beyond Heidegger’s analysis of Anaximander in the lecture course to Parmenides.  Parmenides, of course, is the great philosopher of Being, so let’s gather some preliminary thoughts about Being. When we normally talk about Being, we mean a few different things.  The first is whatness: the dog understood in terms of its furriness for example.  Moreover, we mean howness, such as the table is badly placed in the middle of the gym floor during the game.  In both cases "taken/understood" as furry and as badly positioned, logos apophantikos is intended – something as something, which is to say something as something else.  This can either be something secondary like position and texture, or essential like materiality and in-itself-ness of the piece of chalk.  However, something prior is required.  In a few lecture courses Heidegger gives the example of what makes the understanding of the Being of beings possible even when it isn’t in subject predicate form.  For instance, if ... Read Article

I noted previously Anaximander is talking about beings, ta onta, the neuter plural of to on – being, which implies beings in their unity and not just a multiplicity.  Heidegger notes we see this too in Sanskrit. In Sanskrit, the use of the neuter plural form for "beings" or similar concepts can indeed convey a sense of unity rather than just multiplicity. The neuter gender in Sanskrit often signifies concepts or things in their abstract or collective forms rather than as individual entities. This gender can transcend the binary of masculine and feminine, suggesting something universal or essential. Generally, the plural form would imply many distinct entities, but in philosophical or spiritual contexts, the neuter plural can denote a holistic view where individual distinctions dissolve into a greater, unified whole. This reflects a key aspect of Indian philosophy, particularly in Vedanta or the Upanishads, where the multiplicity of the world is seen as an expression of one underlying reality. Bh ... Read Article

Anaximander gave us a word about beings as beings (entities, things that are in some way instead of being nothing) not just about beings of a specific domain like physical beings or anthropological entities, beings in their Being, and one of the elements was transition like day to night.  In the political dimension, this made sense because Anaximander’s Greece was in a transition period where there were embryos hinting at transition away from the rule of tyrants and toward the voice of the people.  This would have been conspicuous at the time in the contrast between some cities and the reforms happening in Athens.  The transition brings the two opposites into outline or conspicuousness – a limit or peras.  In Greek transition has to do with methistanai, which includes such things as:  To move or transfer from one place to another; To remove, displace, or change the position of something or someone; To change or alter, especially in the context of changing one's mind or allegiance.  For example, in ... Read Article

“The fragment of Anaximander presents one of the strongest hermeneutic challenges known to modem philology and philosophy.”  (Prof Vassilis Lambropoulos: Stumbling.over the ‘Boundary Stone of Greek Philosophy’ Two Centuries-of Translating the Anaximander Fragment) So, I've been blogging about Heidegger's interpretation of Anaximander, primarily from part 1 of the summer semester 1932 lecture course from the University of Freiburg. Next time I will begin to study the part of that course on Parmenides. Let's finish up with Anaximander. For a being to step forth it must create a harmony of beings in non-compliance.  For example, a person might go from a life that is out of joint because of loneliness to the being joined of beings or jointure of a new love who stands forth or is contured/outlined/highlighted that saturates the person’s whole world.  For Anaximander time measures out to beings their Being, and so love is always in the danger of receding back into the background ... Read Article

"The fragment of Anaximander presents one of the strongest hermeneutic challenges known to modem philology and philosophy."  (Prof Vassilis Lambropoulos: Stumbling.over the 'Boundary Stone of Greek Philosophy' Two Centuries-of Translating the Anaximander Fragment) In The Anaximander Fragment in Nietzsche's translation (Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks) is quoted: Whence things have their origin, there they must also pass away according to necessity; for they must pay penalty and be judged for their injustice, according to the ordinance of time. Then Hermann Diel's (Fragments of the Presocratics), But where things have their origin, there too their passing away occurs according to necessity; for they pay recompense and penalty to one another for their recklessness, according to firmly established time. In the essay in Off The Beaten Track, Heidegger narrows his study to only a part of the fragment he considers authentically Anaximander ...along the lines of usage; ... Read Article

“The fragment of Anaximander presents one of the strongest hermeneutic challenges known to modem philology and philosophy.”  (Prof Vassilis Lambropoulos: Stumbling.Over the ‘Boundary Stone of Greek Philosophy’ Two Centuries-of Translating the Anaximander Fragment) “For things pay one another penalty and retribution for their wickedness.” (Anaximander) or “they (beings) bestow compliance and correspondence on one another in consideration of the non-compliance." (Anaximander) Martin Heidegger and Medard Boss: "Our patients force us to see the human being in his essential ground because the modem 'neuroses of boredom and meaninglessness' can no longer be drowned out by glossing over or covering up particular symptoms of illness. If one treats those symptoms only, then another symptom will emerge again and again ... They no longer see meaning in their life and ... they have become intolerably bored (Heidegger and Boss, Zollikon Seminar, 160-161)" We have lost our connection to ... Read Article