Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 17:01:52 +0100
Subject: Re: the o/o gulf (1)


At 15:16 27-3-03 +0000, Anthony Crifasi wrote:

>I believe you mentioned some text in which Heidegger specifically expresses 
>misgivings about the o/o distinction because it might lead to an "a-priori 
>condition" interpretation. Can you tell me where exactly that text is, or 
>perhaps post one or two paragraphs? I don't have the GA volumes.

It's in GA29/30 (1929/30), same time as the published address "What is
metaphysics", in which the love quote is. There is also a bit of Langeweile
just before love. It's in my next mail on Strauss' 'comment' to Heidegger's
love statement. Today or tomorrow.

>>For instance the love above.
>>It is love at the presence (Gegenwart) of the DASEIN (my capitals)
>>of a loved human, not, writes H, at the presence of a mere person.
>>You could say: Dasein is ontological, person is ontic. And I think,
>>to begin with, that's something. One always has to begin with an
>>opposition, otherwise there is only the staring at something
>>massive and abstract, like "love".
>
>Again I would like to see that text specifically to which you are referring. 
>I can't be sure whether Heidegger is using "love" in some non-ontic sense or 
>not, like discourse or call or conscience, etc., until I see the context. 
>But keep in mind that for Heidegger, anxiety is precisely "the staring at 
>something massive and abstract" - its own pure potentiality for Being, which
 >is "massive" in the sense that it is the potentiality for any way
whatsoever 
>that we can be, and "abstract" in the sense that it is not a concrete 
>entity.

>Rene, you can't insist on this distinction between the truth of rightness 
>and the truth of openness while at the same time insisting on the ambiguity 
>of the o/o distinction. After all, the truth of rightness is factical, 
>whereas the truth of openness is ontological. So the very distinction you 
>are making between these two kinds of truths presupposes the very 
>distinction that you are trying to say is ambiguous in the first place! So 
>if you don't want to spoil your reading of John Foster with the "rigidity" 
>of the o/o distinction, then you also can't spoil your reading of ME with 
>the very same "rigidity" of the truth-as-rightness/truth-as-openness 
>distinction.

Perfect. Precautions are always and everywhere needed. So I think
I can say that I don't read you that way.
As to rightness, it must be shown, not merely that it is prior, but how it
departs from openness, how openness 'gives' itself as rightness,
while holding itself back. But there is still also and always the problem
of language. We only have the  (metaphysical) language of rightness
to speak of openness. Then, after a long wrestling the 'distinction'
denken-dichten may approache.

regards rene










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


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