Gary C. Moore With Dr. Allen Scult and Dr. Michael Elden

Dear Rene,

That is the message I am getting too from Heidegger, though why it is Hemming, the Catholic priest, that is making it so clear to me is a real puzzle. He may be wanting to pull the rabbit of faith out of a nihilistic hat, but I have only got a third of the way into the book. It seems to resolve down to. also, how seriously 'one' is to take the 'self' when the 'self' is on the one hand 'nothing' yet on the other hand, to be 'authentic', you are suppose to come back to the 'real' self which has just been utterly destroyed. The 'self' seems to be the last refuge of the 'soul', like "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" (Randolf Bourne, who also said "War is the health of the state," another outmoded concept). What are your thoughts about the 'reality' of the 'self'?

R.B.M.deBakker: Not many, Gary, and the ones I have, are not even available.

R.B.M.deBakker: What are *my* thoughts about *the* self. I'm merely in the way of this self, so it seems.

R.B.M.deBakker: As is the way of thinking itself, so one better not fight it.

 R.B.M.deBakker: One step further, and another self, a neighbour, is needed to satisfy myself with my self.

 R.B.M.deBakker; So one better remains without a self, on the way to it, on the brink of it (angibasia), perhaps.

R.B.M.deBakker:  What mr. Hemming did to you, a student did to me. Maybe they are "The friend of Dasein" (BT), speaking unexpectedly.

R.B.M.deBakker:  Heidegger writes in BT: The being, which is Dasein's concern while being, "... bin je ich selbst."
The student said: one would expect: "...bin ich je selbst" 

 R.B.M.deBakker: I don't know whether this can be translated, but in the latter variant, first come I and then its time. (je: each time, on occasion) But in Heidegger's version the 'je' comes first, and only then the I. 

 R.B.M.deBakker: Then there would be first time (timing), and only then an I.

Like in: Je-meinigkeit (or: je-weilig)


R.B.M.deBakker: - So: we would be, *before* we are an I?


Dear Rene,

You truly know how to engage a person! The first time I read this I understood little but thought, "I think there is something here -- even if it is not." Of course, I think that is exactly the problem with Heidegger, the circularity that is a spiral rather than a tautological circle that makes itself ridiculous. When one has "pinned him down," one really knows one has simply delivered a still-birth of thought and has been a very bad midwife.

Of course, you are pretty slipery yourself and just as deliberate. But genuine kindness and consideration for others shows through the "you" that is not there to give it. You say your thoughts are not available and then proceed not to give them, a substantial lack, a productive negativity, a hole filled with a freedom loving nothingness. I understand "the way of the self". That is an excellent way to describe how Hume dealt with it, but it seems just about everyone on this list thinks Hume is a simple minded buffoon. However, the buffoon's job was to advise the king if the king was smart enough to listen. Heidegger wanted to advise kings but no one was interested. But the American founding fathers read Hume with deep interest. Enough of that . . . for now.

 "As is the way of thinking itself, so one better not fight it." Absolutely beautiful. I am truly humbled (think: acrostic-like). " . . . another self, a neighbour, is needed to satisfy myself with my self." You are fortunate with your neighbors. I live around babboons, viscious, nasty animals, except calling them animals gives them far too much credit. "So one better remains without a self, on the way to it, on the brink of it (angibasia), perhaps." Perfect description. But "angibasia"-- I assume it is Greek but cannot find it is any lexicon. Can you tell me more? And "... bin je ich selbst.", where does this exactly come from in BEING AND TIME?

"Then there would be first time (timing), and only then an I." Again, a brilliant, unavailable thought. But, then, what could such time 'be' if it is first without an "I"? But that statement in reality cannot be about reality but is simply about the "how" of expression in language which always assumes a subject and a predicate whereas your statement is much more like what Heidegger valued as the unique ambility of poetry to 'express' the inexpressible.

"So: we would be, *before* we are an I?" A question as an answer, a naturally unavailable thought. This is what Hemming seems to be getting at, something I have always known to be in Heidegger, best expressed in volume 2 of NIETZSCHE, chapter 25, "The Essence of a Fundamental Metaphysical Position", but coming from a Catholic priest?

Now, faith is very important. Everyone has to have faith. You have faith that you can leave your house, get in the car, and drive to work. This is the "normal state of affairs", custom", "common sense", "tradition". If you really did not -- 'assume' -- this was a trustworthy path of action you could not function -- at all. But you cannot KNOW you are going to get to work. You have faith. This is trivial, but like most trivialities based on very important things. If human being really is fundamentally a question of such a sort it cannot possibly have an answer, then death ceases to be a threat or dreadful on any level or in any situation or relating to any body else. "If God does not exist, then everything is permitted." But, then, desire becomes absurd and arbitrary . . . and trivial. You have posited values none the less. You do not want pain. You do not want your wife and children to die. But, really, why not if . . . I hate then term "significant others" because there can be no "sign', no "significance" in the sense of understanding. "Significant" here merely means "important" without explaining really WHY it is important. What is the meaning, here, of "Importance"? IS there any meaning to the word whatsoever other than posited feelings without explanation? If the superiority of the Aryan race a posited, inexplicable value in a world of arbitrary and groundless values, why not act upon that? But A) that makes one a robot, and B) one likes to hurt people. The choice of any value, even arbitrarily, even just because it is just . . . "there" . . . within the 'self' that does not exist STILL has consequences and ramifications even if now we might view then as neutral observers watching natural phenomena, except . . . why do we even observe? Why do we do anything . . . other than as . . . habit.

Not everyone appreciates the dawning sunlight but I think you do. But there are some 'souls', or should I say 'non-selves', that are black as figurative Hell which, of course, I cannot even possibly imagine and therefore reduce my own statement  to nonsense: "Reductio ad absurdum" as an ontological category.

'sincerely'

Gary C. Moore