19 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Co-Thinking the Ab-Grund, November 10, 2001
This review is from: Companion to Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy: (Paperback)
We are enveloped in this book by an Introduction and thirteen masterful essays, on and in the Heideggerian movement of enowning, a.k.a. the event of appropriation (Ereignis). I use the word "enveloped" with care, as this book is not a presentation that the reader can enact on her or his own as if it entails simply gathering the meanings of key terms and 'ideas.' This is so because the English rendering of Heidegger's key terms is itself an act of enowning that pulls in the reader to re-experience the space between these two great philosophical languages. I have never accepted the absurd claim that English is inferior to German in its philosophical power, scope, and richness. I would venture to say that translations of the terms and sentences of the astonishing text that is the subject of these essays, namely, "Contributions to Philosophy: From Enowning," struggle to exhibit the power of English not only to faintly mimic Heidegger (an insulting idea of the Germanophiles), but to move into other and equally profound momenta of language that bring English to the test of its own resources.
The writers of the essays in the book all have a long-time deep familiarity with Heidegger's key work in the period of the so-called turning (late 1930s) where the Dasein-problematic of "Sein und Zeit" becomes internally transfigured into and with the gifting of time-space, which opens out the reticent ground (ab-grund) that in turn can judge and measure the ungrund of our technological culture.
Rarely does one find a gathering of secondary, yet primary, essays of such high caliber as in this anthology. The "Companion" probes into generic and 'structural' issues as well as into such themes as: the last god, the leap, be-ing (seyn or beyng), beings as a whole (the Greek conception in the first beginning), and things in being. The essays elucidate the tensions between the first ancient beginning and the other beginning that is yet and not yet enacted within the provenance of the first beginning.
For an absolute beginner in Heidegger studies, this is not the place to even attempt a movement of encounter, yet for the advanced novice, this book is accessible on different levels and in different ways. It has opened my eyes to new ways of re-enacting my previous readings of "Contributions to Philosophy," as well as deepening my relationship with one of my most insightful and overturning/re-tuning interlocutors. This anthology is indeed a rare treasure in a decidedly mediocre period in the history of foundational or grounding philosophical query. It is, dare I use the cliche, a must read/encounter.
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0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Want a perspective on the shameless and violent leftist/liberal hijacking of Martin Heidegger's teachings? Look no further, June 6, 2011
This review is from: Companion to Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy: (Paperback)
To start I will confess that I have only read the introduction to this book. The reason that I decided to submit a review anyway is because the intro by Charles E. Scott stands as a representative of the (ahem) "way" of thinking with Heidegger in this book, by his own admission, and because the leftist/liberal hijacking/appropriation is so disgusting in its deliberate dishonesty and perniciousness that I had to send out a warning in the event that there is anyone else out there that is seriously committed to the teachings of this man and is as averse as I am to the ongoing spectacle in the academy of presenting Heidegger, the nefarious Nazi and konservative revolutionary, as the great programmer of the racial/de-racinating-gender/degendering-planetary-managerial-state, i.e., today's U.S. Federal Government. I do promise that I will submit a comprehensive review as soon as I finish the book itself.
The claims of dishonesty and perniciousness are based upon a subtle and barely detectable rhetorical game that is played by scholarship on Heidegger such as Mr. Scott and another example being the two books of William D. Blattner and all of Dreyfus's drivel. Basically the continental-sect, guided by Derrida/Levinas (Leftist/Jew-appropriated Heidegger) plays upon the inherent ambiguity and protean quality of Heidegger's own revolutionary language and sends it in all sorts of directions, bound by a common aim of course. The analytical-sect as presented by Dreyfus and Blattner also participate in this but they also resort to strange categorizations of Heidegger's language, which in the context of Heidegger's own enterprise makes zero intellectual sense. Each sect/school can get away with it in "companions" such as these because these books, in posing as 'explainers' of Heidegger's teachings, naturally draw out newcomers who are in over their heads. If you really want to learn from Martin Heidegger then just continue reading the translations themselves and leave books like these alone. I've found that the translations published by Indiana University Press to be outstanding because at some point they have to say Heidegger and that even occurs in this introduction; its just a matter of maintainig the infuriating parallel of Heidegger's enterprise and leftist/liberal violence, which at times becomes so intertwined that I personally feel books such as these are more trouble than they are worth. "Explainers" like these present the opportunity for exactly what Heidegger apparently did not want when he the gave the instructions for his Gesamtausgabe, i.e., no 'critical-editions'. If he could only see the (leftist/liberal) explanation-industry that surrounds him today!
I have so far been using the grouping leftist/liberal for the group which tears up Heidegger, after the initial up-rooting (the translation), in order to enroll him for that which was, well, not ownmost to him; perhaps it would be much simpler to call them 'Americans'. To put it simply and superficially (for simplicity's sake); you will have a successful engagement with Heidegger if you only read the translations themselves, or even better, the German, and always keep in mind that he was a Nazi and the heir, and only heir, of Nietzsche. I would reference Allan Bloom who said that America has absorbed and taken over a language which was created to show how bad we are in order to show the world how interesting we are. Now these people are no longer "liberals" if they are reading, interpreting, and presenting Heidegger and yet they are self-proclaimed Americans who vote for liberal politics and actively maintain its structure and supporting convictions. On the other hand the economic determinism of authentic leftist movements like socialism and of course Marxism, which are in essence 'liberal' in so far as they are humanistic (and that is to say, entirely) have in a sense been abandonded insofar as their fundamental thrust has been re-routed and supplanted upon a racial-gendered/sexed foundation (Derrida, who is nothing more than the endgame of Marxist humanism). However, as far as I can see Left and liberalism have, in the last two centuries and continuing in this one, always been closer to one another; they both agree about the need to resolve conflict and within recent decades the Left seems to have entirely conceded itself to bourgeois-society, an example of this being my professor (or the academy itself if you will) for this summer-semester (2011) who is an active Derridian, cites Late-Capitalism as an example of of truth's transcendental rhetorical-arbitrariness and consequent exploitation, actively enjoys American sports and band music and whose motto is that as text everything conveys meaning; every man a critic of everything and out pops "democracy"! The Left's only serious complaint about Liberalism and humanism is that liberalism isn't liberal enough and humanism isn't human (i.e. "inclusive") enough. One can clearly see this in Butler with all her talk about inclusion, exclusion and, of course, that magical word, "democracy". Amidst this one only has to keep in mind that Marx blamed the failure of the Paris Commune solely upon the fact that the revolutionaries wasted time erecting democratic conventions instead of simply eliminating the preceding class. Lets look at the words now.
On page 6 I was initially ticked-off by Scott's word choice, "How might his thought compose a leap into a way of thinking that holds itself open to the eventful disclosure of beings and that protects such eventful disclosure from such colonializing beings as subjectivity, reason, God, and representative thought?"
In this sentence alone I found a plethora of problems but lets start with the word "colonializing". By choosing this word Scott suggests that we need to exercise pacifism, caution, reservation and be 'ethical' (kind/friendly) towards what I can only consider he would say is the 'whole of beings'. Now is representative thought simply a being? Heidegger goes through all sorts of painstaking etymological investigations of Greek and Latin, in various lectures, so as to trace an entire epochal-constellation of the historicity of valuative-thought and the Idea. And why is God not presented as what it is; the Christian God?...Also, if colonializing imports an explicitly political tone, which it does, does anything happen to the open and beings themselves? Does openness then become, lets say, openness aka. multiracial society and letting-be means anti-discrimination?
On page 7 things begin to really get going. I'll start with a long quotation:
'Many of the writers in this volume discuss in a variety of contexts these themes and words that I have noted. In these discussions you will find subtle and not so subtle differences of emphasis and translations of important words--a small democracy of voices; and these differences bear testimony to the original quality of Heidegger's thought in Contributions as well as to the elusiveness of be-ing (!). There is no one authoritative-interpretation; and insofar as translations are interpretations, there is no one authoritative rendering into English of Heidegger's language'
So what is going on in the above? Basically this is an example of Derrida, who himself claims that Nietzsche and Heidegger initiates a process of de-centering. This leftist lie originated in the Frace of 68 and Derrida's own Jewishness, which mixed with a smarmy liberalism in America and this lie is able to proliferate in an institutionalized counter-culture (which really does it too much justice, lets say an appearance-based anti-White/European) where revering Heidegger and genuinely following him are seen as acts of criminality.
From here on out differences (Derrida) are heavily emphasized, but this is to overlook the nakedness of "a democracy of voices", which is to be read as a difference of 'opinions', which, of course, is totally subjectivistic. Any invocation of democracy is itself an invitation to the subjectivity that Heidegger ridiculed. However we are lead to believe that this democratic convention of opinions, all exercising their (God-given) rights, their 'freedom of speech', are a testament to the richness of Heidegger's teachings. Basically "no one authoritative-interpretation" means no one discriminates and everyone speaks in their turn and that this amounts to the letting-be of being's be-ing. His comments about interpretation are all born out of this basic thrust. These interpretations are not from the will-to-power!
"He must carry over to thought and language--transl-late--a dimension of disclosive occurrence that lacks an established and determined norm" (pg 7).
This norm, of course (!), is not the historicity of Christianity. It is not the norm that, as a consequence of Christianity, becomes Humanism. It is not the example of Humanism, which is Liberalism. It is not the consequences of Liberalism, which are Democracy, Socialism, and Marxism. Of course it is not any of these, the foundations of Scott's regime of planetary-accessibility, America, the unbridled expression of Humanism and therefore the (cite of catastrophe) in whose service Heidegger has been enrolled.
When Heidegger rejects Humanism it is because Humanism means Human-rights, equal opportunity, affirmative-action, voting, democracy as such, i.e., bourgeois commercial-society/planetary accessibility where everyone bands together in the name of 'getting-along'. This is why he is the heir of Nietzsche. But Scott would have us believe that 'authoritativeness' is bad. One dosen't tell people what to do, which, in effect, amounts up to not letting beings be. Instead we hold democratic conventions for opinion-mouthing and in this we are on the way to be-ing.
"They [beings] spill over and beyond the established limits in their...
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