ON HEIDEGGER’S GREEK IDEALISM AND THE NECESSITY
OF COMMUNITY OR 'BEING-WITH' and concerning
A POSSIBLE MISSAPPREHENSION IN HEMMING IMPLYING
DIVINITY CAN SPEAK
Part 1
In the PARMENIDES lectures (trans. Schuwer
& Rojcewicz, Indiana University Press,
1992) Laurence Paul Hemming refers to pages
71-73 of HEIDEGGER’S ATHEISM, where Heidegger
describes what he conceives as the original
sense of Greek perception as the “object”,
and that is the word he uses [“Objekts”,
German page 153], presenting itself to the
perceiver and as being the prototype from
the Platonic Idea (English 103-104, German
152-155). The very first thing that should
be thoroughly emphasized and strictly clarified
is that this is perceptual, visual!
. . . That still at the end of the Greek
world, namely with Plato, Being was thought
in terms of the “sight” and the “look” in
which something shows itself, in terms of
the “countenance” that at any time “a thing”
or, in general, a being “takes on.” The “countenances”
things take on, their “outward look,” is
in the Greek eidos or idea. Being—idea—is
what in all beings shows itself and what
looks out through them, the precise reason
man can grasp beings as beings at all. That
which looks out into all that is ordinary,
the uncanny as showing itself in advance,
is the originary looking one in the eminent
sense: to theaon, i. e., to theion. We translate
“correctly” [GCM: re “correspondence theory
of truth”], though without thinking in the
Greek manner, “the divine.” Oi theoi, the
so-called gods, the ones who look into the
ordinary, are oi daimones, the ones who point
and give signs. Because the god is, as god,
the one who looks and who looks as the one
emerging into presence, thea on, the god
is the daion-daimon that in the look presents
himself in looking is a god, because the
ground of the uncanny, Being itself, possesses
the essence of self disclosing appearance
. . . That which within the ordinary comes
to presence by his own look is man. Therefore
the sight of the god must gather itself within
the ordinary, in the ambit of the essence
of this human look, and must therein have
its figure set up.
Now the text continues with a sentence very
important to Laurence Paul Hemming’s theological
purpose:
Man himself is that being that has the distinctive
characteristic of being addressed by Being
itself, in such a way that in the self-showing
of man, in his looking and in his sight,
the uncanny itself, god, appears.
Hemming translates it as:
Humanity itself is that being whose particular
appointment is to be addressed (in the sense
of spoken to) from being itself in such a
way that in the self-pointing of humanity,
in its looking and in its sight, the uncanny
itself, the god, appears.
The German is:
Der Mensch selbst ist dasjenige Seiende,
das seine Auszeichnung darin hat, vom Sein
selbst angesprochen zu sein, so daß im Sichzeigen
des Menschen, in seinem Blicken und seinem
Anblick das Ungeheure selbst, der Gott, erscheint.
My sad rendition:
The person himself is that being which has
its honor [to be] addressed of itself, so
that in the showing-itself [Schzeigen] of
the person, in its looking and its view the
monstrosity (or: the tremendous) itself,
the god, appears.
I can see no reason whatsoever to introduce,
as Hemming does, into the visual aspect of
the Platonic eidos “addressed in the sense
of spoken to”. Does anyone else find a justification
for it? Merriam-Webster has this entry for
“addressed”:
Main Entry: 1address
Function: verb
Inflected Form:-ed/-ing/-es
Etymology: Middle English adressen, from
Middle French adrescer, adresser, from a-
(from Latin ad-) + drescer, dresser to straighten,
arrange * more at DRESS
transitive verb
1 obsolete a : to make straight : set in
order : ARRANGE *whose stately numbers are
so well addressed Richard Barnfield* b :
to make right : CORRECT, REDRESS *a parliament
being called to address many things John
Milton*
2 a : DIRECT, AIM : make straight (as a course)
*the enemy of mankind T towards Eve addressed
his way John Milton* b : to direct to go
: SEND, DISPATCH *he was addressed first
to the Earl Gilbert Burnet*
3 archaic a : to make ready : PREPARE *he
did address himself to quit T this mountain
land Lord Byron* b (1) : to make ready or
prepare (as with proper clothing)(2) : CLOTHE,
DRESS c : to put on : DON *I have addressed
a frock of heavy mail Robert Browning*
4 : to direct the efforts or turn the attention
of (oneself) *he addressed himself to the
remains of his chicken and salad C. D. Lewis*
*the speakers addressed themselves to a common
question* : try to apply (oneself or one's
powers) *address yourself to the task of
behaving better Aldous Huxley*
5 a : to direct by way of communication :
communicate directly *addressing his thanks
to his host* *they addressed to the governor
a plea for clemency* b : to direct the words
of (oneself) *addressing himself to the principal,
he defended the students' behavior*
6 a : to speak, write, or otherwise communicate
directly to *addressing the chairman, he
began his speech* *she addressed the older
woman respectfully* b : to deliver a prepared
or formal speech to *he addresses the convention
tonight*
7 a : to write or otherwise mark directions
for delivery on : DIRECT *address a letter
for mailing* *address a package for delivery
by messenger* b : to consign or entrust to
the care of another (as agent or factor)
*the ship was addressed to a factor*
8 : to greet directly using a prescribed
form either in speech or in writing *many
people are uncertain about how to address
members of the nobility*
9 : to direct one's attentions to (as in
courtship) : COURT, WOO *she is too fine
and too conscious of herself to repulse any
man who may address her J. R. Lowell*
10 a : to take one's stance and adjust the
club preparatory to hitting (a golf ball)
b : to stand ready to shoot (an arrow) with
the body turned at right angles to the target
c : to bow slightly to (one's square-dancing
partner) in preparation for a dance
11 law : to unseat or remove (a judge) as
unworthy of office by executive order in
accordance with a formal petition from the
legislature
12 a : to put information into (a memory
or storage device) b : to call upon (such
a device) for information
intransitive verb
1 obsolete : to prepare oneself : set about
*let us address to tend on Hector's heels
Shakespeare*
2 obsolete : to direct one's speech or attentions
*my lord of Burgundy, we first address toward
you Shakespeare*
synonyms see DIRECT
This has for the most part to do with intentionality
toward an objective or perceptual situation.
With the German “angesprochen“, the meaning
of „gesprochen“ is „spoken”. But in Heidegger’s
context itself, it seems clear the traditional
meanings of the English “addressed” apply
and essentially has to do with ‘dealing with
a situation’. Any comments?
The concept is presented with great difficulty
as if something we “moderns” have never experienced
before and find hard to conceive. But we
have. We are thoroughly familiar with it.
Maybe we do not like to think about it because
it seems to display a drastic and fundamental
flaw in “modern” life. It may seem to resemble
the “fall” and being “cast out of the Garden
of Eden”, but this remains a myth because
this “flaw” is inherent in any human political
society. The Platonic eidos can only authentically
function in a Greek polis, but, though the
polis does have aspects of a far more cohesive
and life-long community, the essence of that
cohesiveness, when knocked off balance for
whatever reason, can have even more severe
repercussions than a modern society accustomed
to being “knocked off balance”, that is,
always in a state of being challenged as
a way of political life and making a proper
place for those challenges to be performed.
The polis as such always had a string conservative
culture behind it even in Athens so that
it adjusted poorly to changes in political
perspective in conflict with standard customs,
for instance, the execution of the victorious
Athenian admirals after a great sea victory
because they did not stop in the middle of
the battle to pick up the Athenian dead in
the water, or even the execution of the politically
and religiously conservative Socrates as
a renovator of ancient religion. However,
as a place, a topos for eidos as commonly
shared perception, the polis is ideal.
Heidegger says, “We moderns . . . understand
“looking” exclusively as man’s representational
self-direction toward beings. But in this
way looking does not at all come into sight;
instead it is understood only as a self-accomplished
“activity”, that is, an act of re-presenting.
To re-present means here to present before
oneself, to bring before oneself and to master,
to attack things. The Greeks experience looking
at first and properly (my italics)as the
way man emerges and comes into presence,
with other beings, but as man in his essence
(Heidegger’s italics). Thinking as moderns
and therefore insufficiently (my italics),
but for us surely more understandably (my
italics), we can say in short: the look,
thea, is not looking as [an] activity and
act of the ‘subject’ but is sight as the
emerging of the ‘object’ and its coming to
our encounter [Hemming: but the arising and
coming-toward of the ‘object’ . . . self-pointing]”
[last phrase: Der Blick, thea, ist nicht
das Blicken a ls Tätigkeit und Akt des ‘Subjekts’,
sondern der Anblick als Aufgehen und Entgegenkommen
des ‘Objekts’ . . . sich-zeigen.] (103).
(The view, thea, is not the looking as an
activity and act of the ‘subject’, but rather
the view as a rising, a coming up and meeting
the ‘object’. . . itself-show.)
Now here we have the very curious opposition
of “proper” versus “insufficient” with a
very confusing third odd term “understandable”
that belongs to us poor retarded moderns
which of course includes Heidegger necessarily,
and . . . he is perfectly conscious, in an
underhanded sort of way, of exactly what
that means. I have discussed what I call
Heidegger’s “sliding duplicity” elsewhere
in regard to THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS OF
METAPHYSICS: World, Finitude, Solitude, trans.
McNeil & Walker, Indiana, 1995. in that
text, derived from lectures given in 1929/30,
Heidegger makes his method perfectly obvious
on the surface because of his “sliding” from
the point of view of human being determined
by and as language, logos, the zoon logon
echon, that subtly “slides” into the point
of view of human being as animal. What seems
judgmental from a ‘superior’ point of view,
“the animal is poor in world” as deficiency,
‘slides’ almost imperceptibly into a possibly
superior point of view. The distinction,
then, between eidos being either visual or
verbal would be of great importance because
the emphasis then of perceiving the eidos
that necessarily requires a communal vision
would fall on the “animal” of Aristotle’s
, “Hence it is evident that the state is
a creation of nature, and that man is by
nature a political animal”, 1253a2-3. Why
it is “imperceptible”, that it is only “possible”
there is no predetermining language, and
therefore it becomes difficult to state the
real problem in language other than by subtle
suggestion and the aporias of logical contradiction?
If an idea comes from sight instead of word,
there is no reason an animal cannot see the
gods as oi daimones.
What is “proper” is Platonic Idealism which
Heidegger relates all this to directly on
the very next page. I will take as a representative
of both the “insufficient” and the “understandable”
(this is falling into place all too easily)
David Hume while omitting the label “empiricist”
which others apply to him and he never accepted
himself just like he never accepted the labels
“atheist’, “agnostic”, or “deist” (he called
himself a “philosophical theist” consistently
throughout his life).
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