Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 14:09:02 +0200
Subject: Re: Ge-lassen-heit


The -heit in Gelassenheit has, I think, to do with 
Stimmung, that is Grund-Stimmung. The same -heit
is in Verhaltenheit, the Grundstimmung of GA 45,
and in Offenheit. In the book "Gelassenheit" the
Offenheit fuer das Geheimnis is put next to 
the Verhaltenheit (keeping to oneself) 
vis-a-vis technological things.

Gary Moore's last mails on Kant's Einbildungskraft, although
I almost always disagree, made me think, and this is more
important, of its relation to Grundstimmung, fundamental mood.  
Einbildungskraft is, according to Kant, the ability
(Vermoegen) to represent an object, without its actual presence. 
It is, as such, halfway intuition (Anschauung) and 
discursive thinking (Begriff).

(Heidegger sticks in his early Kant-interpretation to 
the deduction of the 1st ed. Later he sees that the 2nd
ed. is by far superior. Kant was quite proud of it. Compared
to it, the 1st, with its phases of recognition etc.
is just a psychological story. The transcendental function 
of the imagination now is grounded in the transcendental
synthesis of the apperception)

The Grundstimmung, as treated since What is metaphysics
(Angst) and GA 29/30 (Langeweile), has this feature, comparable
to the Einbildungskraft, that subject and object are no longer separate
in it. (They are still there in concrete boredom:
see GA 29/30 for what happens when your train is gone) 
The "being in totality", das Seiende im Ganzen, that is
disclosed in the Grundstimmung, is not an object for a 
subject. One could ask, what then is disclosed, when there
is no s and o. And: when there is no s and o, mood itself
seems to be absent as well. 
A long time ago Graham McBeath wrote: 

 
 I would like some suggestions as to what sense to make of a certain
 passage from B&T. The passage is: (p.173,McQ&R/126-7 Stambaugh)
 
 "The pallid, evenly balanced lack of mood, which is often persistent and
 which is not to be taken for a bad mood, is far from nothing at all. Rather,
 it is in this that Dasein has become satiated with itself. Being has become
 manifest as a burden. Why that should be one does not know. And Dasein
 cannot know anything of the sort because the possibilities of
 disclosure which belong to cognition reach far too short a way compared with
 the primordial disclosure belonging to moods, in which Dasein is brought
 before its Being as "there".
  
and:

 Many thanks to Gary Moore for his extended comment. My raising this
 question was partly caused by my forgetting to look elsewhere for H's
 analyses of mood and burden. Upon doing this I noted that H. associates
 the pallid lack of mood' with `indifference', which seems to be similar
 to boredom. However, what I do not quite see is that pallid lack of
 mood, satiety, and `being become manifest as a burden' belong together.

 What has struck me about `indifference' is precisely that it does not
 disclose anything very much or itself. Not minding (indifference) is a
 kind of fullness (because possibilities have been abandoned - nothing
 more to do) which is not a troubled mood; factically is does not seem to
 me to point to the burden. Rather, it might be said to obscure it, if
 the burden sneaks in at all.

1. Knowing that the later Heidegger thinks aletheia from lethe, 
disclosing from closing, hiddenness, this must begin somewhere, because
in BT are only indications of it, like the above cited. 
But by saying this, I only make a logical statement.

2. Only in Stimmung/mood, Being, as the nothing into which sinks
everything being, can be experienced. Contributions: Dasein ist Stimmung.
Kant characterized the Einbildungskraft as "... an art in the dephts of the
human soul". (1st AND 2nd ed.) Also when it must be according to the
synthetical unity of the "I think", it is not transparent as this
pure function is to itself. That time and place must be 
"formale Anschauungen a priori", that is with a unity in them (2nd
deduction near the end), 
which makes them representable, can and must be required by a critical
thinking. 
Its self-restriction to what is given in time and place, is not some pious
Gelassenheit, 
but the condition of the conquering of the limited area of human knowledge.
Insofar
there is not a pulling back by Kant in front of the finity of man. He has,
somehow, already experienced this finity (stimmungsmaessig, in a mood ; think
of the dogmatic slumber), but it has given place for developping possible
experience
(moegliche Erfahrung) as the domain of human knowledge. 
(This is comparable to what Heidegger says in GA 45 about the Greeks, that
they
experienced aletheia, but didn't, couldn't question itself.)

3. In "Die Frage nach dem Ding" (1936), Heidegger stops trying to radicalize
the Einbildungskraft and interprets Kant's position as a metaphysical 
Grundposition. And later: "Gelassenheit" can only come close, when it is
hold far away
from the transcendental-horizontal representing (Vor-stellen: place in
front of yourself),
and that means perduring (Ausdauer) in the pallid indifference, which
ITSELF is
nothing indifferent.   

cheers,

René
    






-----------------------------------
drs. René de Bakker
Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam
Afdeling Catalogisering 
tel. 020-5252368              


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