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A problem I have been dealing with in Heidegger
is that In BEING AND TIME, Heidegger takes
a very radical view of dasein's authentic
appropriation of tradition which, by necessity,
completely takes it apart and puts it back
together again as dasein actually knows it
instead of the 'everyday' passive acceptance
of a vague theme of what tradition is that
never examines it rationally in detail or
judge even if it fits together coherently.Gary
C. Moore 2001
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Gary Moore To: heidegger@lists.village.virginia.edu
August 28, 2000
Dear Rene de Bakker!
Once again you demonstrate you are a wonderful
and beautiful person, but MOST OF ALL exceptionally
perceptive! After writing this letter, especially
after receiving the first reply, I regretted
having written it. But in writing it, I had
clearly defined for myself the aspect about
Heidegger that has been constantly bothering
me. And you have put your finger exactly
upon the point. "With this question
you hit yourself in the face! . . . My dear
sir, you cannot know about my loneliness
. . ." There are echoes here that, to
me, recall the wild eyed German Romanticist
aspect of his philosophy, his passionate
commitment to the RISK of death, the excitement
of the constant call of danger! He doesn't
speak to the interviewer filled with the
stuffy pride of status, but with the tone
of one who has danced on the edge of Hell
as if saying, "Who are you to think
you understand any part of what I have experienced
in life!" which is said both with the
pride of one who has survived, and the corresponding
sorrow of one who did not survive. He has
a closed privacy in his life absent to a
large degree in most every other philosopher,
though some, like Nietzsche SEEMED to make
public spectacles of themselves as a means
of hiding what was possibly (?) really going
on. Sartre certainly made a public spectacle
of himself, but I cannot help but like him
for it. Others, like Kant and Hegel, may
have hid their feelings because of the political
danger involved, which led to them being
portrayed as moral and political conservatives
which I think is completely false. But I
do not think anyone really has a real clue
as to what motivated Heidegger, although
surprisingly (to me who admires the thoroughly
'systematic'--in Hegel's personal and real
sense --philosophy of his early years) stated
several times, including a marginal note
to BEING AND TIME, that his way of philosophy
was JUST HIS WAY, and that there were many
other ways just as possible as his. In other
words, everybody else was just along for
the ride, but he had somewhere definite he
wanted to go which he kept to himself. So
that when he seems sly and devious, that
may simply be the outward aspect of something
he simply refuses to acknowledge and explain
since, philosophy being an intensely personal
matter to him, it's none of our damn business!
Anyway, your letter has certainly lifted
my spirits. If you agree with Heidegger's
double statement that philosophy is a crazy/transcendent
business, it is because, in real philosophy,
you deal with drastic issues in a calm and
casual manner. If you are doing it right,
you are out 'there' all by yourself. Absolutely,
as Hegel would say, alone.
'Sincerely'
Gary C. Moore
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