Date: Sat, 4 Jul 1998 12:11:48 +0200
Subject: Re:  Mind & Body, German


Cologne 04 July 1998

TMB schrieb endlos:
> Well, then, should I assume that there are those who simply will not
> discuss Heidegger without all participants knowing German? Aside from the
> obvious "left-feld-ness" (in some ways) of my own perspective, and my
> views not being well recieved more often tha those of many others, etc. (I
> have to explicitly admit this for the sake of this question)  it remains
> then that any comment can be dismissed by saying, "You really don't
> understand, and can't as you are not reading in the original German." My
> general sense is as follows: Unless in is line with certain views of many,
> though surely not all, on this list, a number of moves can be used to
> dismiss the non-usual or alternative reading. These include:
>
> -- one doesn't know German
> -- One is psychologizing (this is apparently used for everything, without
> regards at all for whether it is the case, at tiems)
> -- One is not doing close enough textual reading
> -- One is trapped in this or that metaphysical view prior to Heidegger's
> deconstruction and paradigmatic reworkings
>
> These are all potentially fine riticisms, by the way. My own personal
> *best sensse* here is that they are, in the main, being deployed
> *somewhat* excessively. 
>
> I will hold that, for the time being, one can "make do" with non-German,
> that, further more, corresponding "Heiegger-style" more deeply resonant
> and philosphical able engagemnt through language is in fact possible
> outside of German, the unique or specific meanings that one may find in
> German or any specific language notwithstanding. German still has a
> priviledge with regards to Heidegger's thinking, of course. It remains,
> for example, that even one who speaks fluent German may well lack insight
> to this or that issue, while another who doesn't have German may have
> greater insight to a particular issue, and can, to some reasonable
> extent, "make up for"  the lack of German in thinking in their own
> language. 
>
> I hold, secondly, ...

Allow me to step into this stream of _rhaemata_.

Tom, why don't you shut up for half an hour and go buy a German dictionary?
You are a completely aufmerksamkeit-suechtiger Nervensaeger. 
Look up the preceding as your first exercise. 
Remember that "ae" = "a" Umlaut = "a" with two dots on it. 
The same holds for "oe" and "ue".

And yes, it's like pushing shit up hill trying to understand Heidegger (and 
Kant, Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, Nietzsche...) without some working knowledge of 
German -- at least parallel reading in English and German. 
Ditto mutatis mutandis for Plato/Aristotle and Greek.
Reading in foreign languages is part of the tools of the trade.

;))
Michael
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