Michel Foucault’s work, entitled This Is Not a Pipe, is a composition exuding a similar philosophical style and aura as that quite reminiscent of the content and the underlying themes present in the body of text comprising (namely) the introductory chapters of his, The Order of Things. In itself, his pursuit is one that substantiates its own philosophical worth and resourceful value for any who seek to mount investigative efforts into the nature of being so as to decipher the veiled disclosure of its possible meanings. The philosophical discussion and analyses presented therein, while indeed concise and to the point, are substantially insightful and informative. Particularly the concern deals with those paradoxical aspects of existence that come to be featured so prominently artworks. The work of art expressly exhibits our existential antimony, more so than just any random piece of use-equipment, as it can bring this enigma of reciprocal contrariety to the fore of individual attention by virtue of its transcendent meaning—this is done in its being as and for that meaning which it projects, and essentially is. Artists, whether via painting, writing, or through some other artfully poetic line of thinking, place center stage these innumerable relations of contradiction within Being and across beings, be these be immediately visible or not. Expression, here chiefly art and language, radiates a lucid pertinence as a light-source, by which at least some of our shadows of existential doubt, dancing silhouettes in the selfsame paradox of meaningful interaction, may be cast aside if illumined in a proper mirror of patient reflection.
It is to this end that Foucault consigns his purpose, commencing to dissect, compare, and contrast art and language so as to extract any possible similitude or distinctions between the two. Centering his focus of discussion with an orientation revolving around the artist Rene Magritte (for whom Foucault had a penchant), the core of the dialogue emanates from Magritte’s artistic creations. Though other works and artists are analyzed as well, it becomes clear that Foucault views Magritte and his works as exceptionally noteworthy instances of art which epitomize the paradox of painting—this of course, is surely paralleled in scope and nature by that of the being of language, as each is tied together in their existence as expressive activity. Through analysis of Magritte’s work, Foucault adumbrates the pressing fundamentality of that relationship of infinitum shared between painting (really, art) and language. The principal centerpiece, around which this text revolves, is the thought provocative work, Ceci n’est pas une pipe. As the translator comments at the introduction, regarding this focal point, it “ultimately both escapes from and yet returns to its ‘subject’ by a willful self-liberation from anything upon which it might be obliged slavishly to ‘comment’.”(12) While not a painter, per se, Foucault’s literal aim (since the livelihood of interpretation lies with the fact that this is our most essential, indeed only, asset) is nevertheless to also go beyond, to reach outside his ‘subject’ only to return to it and render its view afresh.
Digressing as such he interprets the “two pipes”, or the representations of both image and text, each of which come together as a single symbiotic representation which is indicative of the prime essentiality of the fact that neither aspect of this portrayal (and the same goes for any other) can ever truly do justice to the actuality of that which it represents—unless of course, the artwork represents the fact that it is not that of which it is representative. This oddity is interestingly described as a sort of mimetic “pipe dream”, if you will, of the actual. (16) Both the text and image point to a pipe that is physically tangible but yet not really there in truth. Moreover, both refer to an existence outside their own—a real pipe—this is a reality of which neither can have possession. Accordingly, the question is appropriately raised: who could reasonably “contend that the collection of intersecting lines above the text is a pipe?” (19) Foucault describes this central work as a “calligram”, a picture that is paired with words—it effectually “makes the text say what the drawing represents.” As such, “the calligram is thus tautological,” and its being is of an allegorical essence. (20-21) This is the sense of Foucault’s words in speaking of Magritte’s project, which he viewed as one concerned with “doing everything necessary [especially in the instance of our present topic] to reconstruct…the space common to language and the image.” (29) He explains this as a “common place” for these two forms. One should note the diction and pun employed here, taking into consideration the significance of what is suggested by this play of words—for it is this commonality, this essential foundation, which becomes “common-place” in the everydayness of our consciousness. The tact of Ceci n’est pas une pipe is to bring front and center, for all eyes who care to see, an outlook of this two-sided mystery of our intersubjectivity and its spiraling paradoxes of: Self and Other, subject and object, seer and seen. Self-contained within its own tautology, Magritte’s painting makes manifests that circulation of interpretation and expression, as well as concretely demonstrating the communal substratum of both the word and art. Via the window created by the open gaze of the artist, we too may experience a part of this vision, and thus view the image of which this work (like all true art) is a mirror—in its looking-glass, we confront our own selves, being brought face to face with the dialectical reality of intersubjective experience, to which we owe our existence, as well as all knowledge, let alone of that of the paradoxical. Through the mirror of art, as it is on all levels reflective of reflection, if we observe how art principally reflects the interactivity of our reflective expression, we may be granted a better understanding, of understanding itself.
Foucault moves to compare Magritte with artists Klee and Kandinsky; he mentions a worldview that effected the direction of art in the time periods spanning between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries. Here there was a prevalent view that looked to separate the resemblance of images and the text that comments on those images. He describes certain “subordinations” between the two, explaining how, regardless of the direction of subjugation, “the meaning…multiplies, and reverses itself.” (32) It is this which Klee set out to do specifically; and, whereas Kandinsky was concerned with detaching the realm and act of painting from the “old equivalence” of resemblance and affirmation, Magritte’s intention is rather to set the two apart and “establish their inequality”—Foucault calls this an “art of the ‘Same’, liberated from the ‘as if.’” (43) Yet while Foucault says Magritte seems to be furthest from these two artists, his efforts are still ultimately in juxtaposed in alignment with theirs, as “his painting seems wedded to exact resemblances, to the point where they willingly multiply and assert themselves. It is not enough that the drawing of the pipe so closely resemble a pipe.” (35) At the close, Foucault draws a distinction which he thinks is apparent in Magritte’s art, one between resemblance and similitude—basically, this is a problematic concerning the issue of that which is the represented, and that doing the representing. (44) Here he makes use of his idea of a circular “simulacrum” of interacting similitudes, in discussing the rift of consciousness that is enfolded in meaningful expression which he says is “in a sense always reversible,” for between the space of its two poles it “ranges across the surface” of interstice. (45) Ceci n’est pas une pipe is thus, “the affirmation of the simulacrum, affirmation of the element within the network of the similar.” To quote Magritte, seeing as though it would seem to be most appropriate given his actual craft, he states of his art: “Only thought can resemble. It resembles by being what it sees, hears, or knows; it becomes what the world offers it.” (46-47)
In short, each of these dilemmas are puzzle pieces belonging within the fold of an even greater quandary. Both painting and language appear to emanate from the timeless split of the universal and particular, a being that is for us that primal rift of consciousness which is evident for the existent Self in relations toward Others—this is a, if not the, primary locus for virtually all of those characteristics we like bundle into the phrase ‘human condition.’ Both Foucault and Magritte seemed to have an affinity for one another’s reflective endeavors—Magritte held a wide interest in philosophy and read much in the field of ideas in order to satisfy that curiosity; incidentally it is said that, instead of the term “artist”, his preference was “to be considered a thinker who communicated by means of paint.” (2) Each thinker undertook to explicate the anomalies of human expression, to include questioning the seemingly arbitrary nature of significations and the meanings to which they are assigned (such as the sign itself not appearing linked to the essence of the signified). It may indeed be that they were on opposite planes, but each recognized the ‘resemblance’ between their paths. As their friendship (and work) shows, both drew on such parallels of perspective as a means for broadening the authentic reality of their own interpretive vision. The relationship of correspondence and admiration shared by Foucault and Magritte resonates with the text—for just as it is with the case of circulation between two reciprocal elements of the “pipe”, Foucault’s words paint and re-interpret the visual critique Magritte offers of interpretation, thus personifying the curious, interwoven nature of interpretive activities, as they are in relation to their various outlets continually being rediscovered upon an ever-developing pallet of expression.
Works Cited
—Foucault, Michel. This Is Not A Pipe. Berkeley: University of California P, 1983. (TP)
Friday, November 28, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
C. O. Schrag, God as Otherwise than Being
Jacob Riley
Phenomenology
Dr. Davis
10/22/08
Beyond postmodern theology: A brief analysis of Schrag’s God as Otherwise Than Being
In this book, Calvin O. Schrag points to a way of solving the problem of how to talk about God. Schrag first lays out the problem as it has been formulated throughout the history of philosophy. By situating the problem within the tradition , Schrag’s position is relatively easy to read and understand. He also frequently situates his position in terms of other works he has produced throughout his career. Therefore, one should not be surprised that, apropos of his very first interest in Kierkegaard and Heidegger (in Existence and Freedom), it is important for Schrag to point out especially the contributions of Kierkegaard to his current thought. Thus, not only does Schrag very clearly make his main argument, but it also draws the reader’s attention to the insights of Kierkegaard (and many other thinkers) that are still relevant to contemporary philosophical discourse.
Schrag begins by laying out the problem of being as formulated by the ancients. Using Heidegger in order to distinguish between the ontic and ontological, he points out that traditional theology has been of the ontic order. This means that it has been concerned with beings not Being. He claims that even the medieval tradition of negative theology does not escape metaphysics: “Negative theology lays claim to a superabundance or excess of Being by attesting in a quite serendipitous manner to a “being beyond Being…even the denials within negative theology are unable to escape the strictures of a metaphysical grammar” (Schrag, 12). After the medieval period, an “epistemological” shift in thinking in the modern period of philosophy resulting in a narrowed the definition of “reason” different from the ancient concept of logos: “The disposition of the modern mind was to emancipate logic from the logos and restrict the reach of knowledge to objectifiable data” (Schrag, 18). Following the modern period was a linguistic turn toward structuralism that bracketed the referent and ignoring the problem of the naming of a real God. Finally a reformulation of the question came about through the ordinary language movement. It seems that the question of the names of God in the medieval tradition has come back to haunt us but affected by the modern project. “What is learned from these shifts and transitions, however, is that God-talk is a language game that exhibits certain linguistic oddities” (Schrag, 26). Schrag wants to know in what way we may be able to transcend mere linguistic games.
However, it would be a mistake to think that Schrag is talking about either postmodern pluralism or traditional atheism. Indeed, these are for Schrag only the next steps in our move toward transcendence theological discourse of the past. Theology, as a quintessential grand narrative, has undergone the postmodern critique like every other discipline because postmodernity’s main target is such meta-narratives: “The postmodern ethos would have us opt for local narratives (petit recits) and be done with quests for unification and totalization as we busy ourselves with a celebration of difference and multiplicity” (Schrag, 37). Schrag cites Habermas as a thinker who is bold enough to try and salvage some notion of unity, identity and totality against the postmodern thinkers. Schrag, as admirable arbiter, thinks there is a position in between the two, which he calls transversal communication: “
Across the various disciplines, the concept of transversality exhibits the
interrelated senses of lying across, extending over, contact without absorption, convergence without coincidence, and unity without strict identity. The play of meaning allows one to speak of commonalities and conjunctions that do not violate the integrity of differences (Schrag, 40).
Schrag admits that this is more difficult when it comes to religious discourse, but points toward narrative as a possible opening space: “it soon becomes evident that the use and abuse of narrative is very much in the eye of the storm that has occasioned the postmodern challenge” (Schrag, 41). The question is—is there a narrative that may replace the grand narrative of traditional theology?
Before getting to a possible answer, Schrag returns to what he considers as the birth of postmodernity: Nietzsche’s writing of the death of God[1]. Schrag defines this type of atheism as essentially reactive: “it calls for a negation of the concept of a supernatural being in classical theism as well as a negation of the God of cultural Christianity” (Schrag, 46). Nietzsche criticizes the weakness and pitiful nature of the God of classical theism who is devoid of power. For Schrag, Nietzsche’s will to power signifies a call to creativity, but devoid of any moral import: “What is required is a creation of the self informed by aesthetic possibilities rather than ethical imperatives” ( Schrag, 49). Another form of reactive atheism is found in Freud. Whatever the truth to his entire theory of religion as mass neurosis, Schrag thinks that Freud has pointed to the problem in classical theism of our tendency to anthropomorphize God. Jean-Paul Sartre is another reactive atheist who radically demonstrates within his own metaphysical dualism that the concept of God itself is a contradiction. God is the being-for-itself-in-itself. However, this is an impossible unity because such a being would stop being a for-itself because the definition of the for-itself is concerned with a becoming of what it is not yet.
Yet the problem is that atheism is stuck in the space of God as a being. What about God as otherwise than being? Returning to the tradition of the via negativa, Schrag reads a text of Plato in order to understand negation in a fascinating way: “negation, in the guise of nonbeing, should be understood specifically with the help of the superform of difference…Nonbeing retains an unbroken liason with being” (Schrag, 60). With a few steps in between, this points toward alterity and otherness. This leads away from God as a being to Levinas’ concept of God as Wholly Other; from ontology to ethics; and eventually to a semantics of the gift.
In their efforts to move away from the metaphysics of presence, both Derrida and Heidegger seem to move toward the ethical realm through Derrida’s emphasis on responsibility and Heidegger’s on Ereignis, or, event of appropriation. Levinas also critiques traditional metaphysics of presence through his engagement with Husserl. For Levinas, the problem with Husserl is that he continued to “think about the relationship between me and the other in terms of knowledge” (Schrag, 80). Instead, Levinas radicalizes and reformulates the notion of the subject and insists that the ethical realm be the locus of transcendence. It is in the concrete face of the neighbor that God becomes present, not through ontology or metaphysics. But how does God become present? Schrag locates this in the grammar of the Derridean trace. However, at this point the trace only helps him to formulate the question: “In what manner does the infinite ‘come to me’ as a trace in the face of my neighbor?” (Schrag, 82).
Schrag begins this investigation within the conflict between the priestly and the prophetic; the ethical and the sacramental. In the prophetic or ethical realm, temporality in Kierkegaard’s and Heidegger’s sense offers a new sense of presence. The coming to presence is not one isolated moment of time, but rather an “opportune moment” which is located between the past and the future. Time in this sense is defined not as a passing of moments, but as lived time. The emphasis on temporality marks a shift from the name of God to a focus on narrative: “The meaning of presence of the Deity cannot be captured in an exercise of trying to find the right name. It requires a broader context of considerations of narrative as a form of life” (Schrag, 88). Yet, presence still needs to be conceived also in the sacramental realm. Schrag suggests Jean-Luc Marion’s theory of the Eucharist as a possible answer to the outmoded theory of transubstantiation: Marion thinks the Eucharist in terms of a gift of charity. Even though Schrag takes issue with this because it is only works under particular authority and thus may still be subject to idolatry of the secular, he thinks Marion’s theory of the gift is useful.
However, it is this word “theory” that Schrag wants to get away from and instead replace it with praxis: “It is both linguistic and behavioral, text and texture, at once a narrative and a lived history” (Schrag, 95). In short, Schrag emphasizes the whole of lived experience: facticity, potentiality-for-being, embodiment, nature, culture—all of these are part of life as praxis. Praxis breaks down the distinctions of the sacramental and the ethical; discourse and action, etc. Kierkegaard’s “stages of existence” are useful to help formulate a possible transcendence: the sacramental and the ethical are lower than the religious. For Schrag, the “ethico-religious” stage is somehow related to the region of the gift.
At the beginning of the last section of the book, Schrag points to Derrida for his problematizing of the gift. Derrida thinks that when a gift is within a network of exchange relations, the giving of a gift negates itself as a gift. Thus, for Derrida, a true gift is impossible. However, gift giving is only impossible within a consumer based network of exchange relations. Schrag wants to see whether there is a gift that is located outside of our ethical and social life, which is stuck in this system of economic exchange. He finds this type of gift in caritas: a charitable and unconditional love as a gift that asks for nothing in return. Against Derrida, the gift is not necessarily negated as soon as it is given, if we focus on the aspect of acknowledgement instead of recognition. For example, “One acknowledges a former mentor by thanking him or her for the gift of knowledge…by becoming a mentor for others within a centrifugal space of reaching out to the other” (Schrag, 120). Acknowledgement thus sets off a chain of reactions toward others originally outside of the gift-giving, instead of puts a burden on the receiver to the gift giver. At the risk of oversimplifying, it sounds like Schrag has philosophically justified the ethic of the film Pay it Forward. However, Schrag does not want to remain in the space of the ethical. Instead, the gift transcends the ethical and, ultimately, anticipates the Kingdom of God: “although the Kingdom of God has not yet come, it has already begun to come, and it is always beginning to come” (Schrag, 135). For Schrag, this thinking is already contained in Kierkegaard’s philosophy: “To love is to hope, to be projected into the future, to exist as possibility. And it is as possibility that the eternal becomes incarnate in the temporal” (Schrag, 136). The gift is a manifestation of the event that is always to-come within the temporal realm. Schrag even gives specific instances of aneconomic gifts that point toward completed justice such as the saving of thousands of Jews from death camps in the town of La Chambon.
For such a short book, Schrag packs in a ton of ideas difficult to summarize. However, while reading the book Schrag never leaves you without a full explanation of where he is and where he is going. I think this book is a great way for understanding how theology got to the point where it is at now through the shift from being to becoming; essence to event.
Works Cited
Schrag, Calvin, O. God as Otherwise Than Being: Toward a Semantics of the Gift.
Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2002.
[1] Interestingly enough, Schrag does not mention the rest of this statement: “and we have killed him.” Perhaps it is because he sees it as tangential to his argument, but I beg to differ. It is the killing of the mystery of God in the metaphysical tradition that brought God down to our level. Nietzsche may be simulatenously announcing the death of the Onto-theological God and the death of God that was brought about by this onto-theology.
Phenomenology
Dr. Davis
10/22/08
Beyond postmodern theology: A brief analysis of Schrag’s God as Otherwise Than Being
In this book, Calvin O. Schrag points to a way of solving the problem of how to talk about God. Schrag first lays out the problem as it has been formulated throughout the history of philosophy. By situating the problem within the tradition , Schrag’s position is relatively easy to read and understand. He also frequently situates his position in terms of other works he has produced throughout his career. Therefore, one should not be surprised that, apropos of his very first interest in Kierkegaard and Heidegger (in Existence and Freedom), it is important for Schrag to point out especially the contributions of Kierkegaard to his current thought. Thus, not only does Schrag very clearly make his main argument, but it also draws the reader’s attention to the insights of Kierkegaard (and many other thinkers) that are still relevant to contemporary philosophical discourse.
Schrag begins by laying out the problem of being as formulated by the ancients. Using Heidegger in order to distinguish between the ontic and ontological, he points out that traditional theology has been of the ontic order. This means that it has been concerned with beings not Being. He claims that even the medieval tradition of negative theology does not escape metaphysics: “Negative theology lays claim to a superabundance or excess of Being by attesting in a quite serendipitous manner to a “being beyond Being…even the denials within negative theology are unable to escape the strictures of a metaphysical grammar” (Schrag, 12). After the medieval period, an “epistemological” shift in thinking in the modern period of philosophy resulting in a narrowed the definition of “reason” different from the ancient concept of logos: “The disposition of the modern mind was to emancipate logic from the logos and restrict the reach of knowledge to objectifiable data” (Schrag, 18). Following the modern period was a linguistic turn toward structuralism that bracketed the referent and ignoring the problem of the naming of a real God. Finally a reformulation of the question came about through the ordinary language movement. It seems that the question of the names of God in the medieval tradition has come back to haunt us but affected by the modern project. “What is learned from these shifts and transitions, however, is that God-talk is a language game that exhibits certain linguistic oddities” (Schrag, 26). Schrag wants to know in what way we may be able to transcend mere linguistic games.
However, it would be a mistake to think that Schrag is talking about either postmodern pluralism or traditional atheism. Indeed, these are for Schrag only the next steps in our move toward transcendence theological discourse of the past. Theology, as a quintessential grand narrative, has undergone the postmodern critique like every other discipline because postmodernity’s main target is such meta-narratives: “The postmodern ethos would have us opt for local narratives (petit recits) and be done with quests for unification and totalization as we busy ourselves with a celebration of difference and multiplicity” (Schrag, 37). Schrag cites Habermas as a thinker who is bold enough to try and salvage some notion of unity, identity and totality against the postmodern thinkers. Schrag, as admirable arbiter, thinks there is a position in between the two, which he calls transversal communication: “
Across the various disciplines, the concept of transversality exhibits the
interrelated senses of lying across, extending over, contact without absorption, convergence without coincidence, and unity without strict identity. The play of meaning allows one to speak of commonalities and conjunctions that do not violate the integrity of differences (Schrag, 40).
Schrag admits that this is more difficult when it comes to religious discourse, but points toward narrative as a possible opening space: “it soon becomes evident that the use and abuse of narrative is very much in the eye of the storm that has occasioned the postmodern challenge” (Schrag, 41). The question is—is there a narrative that may replace the grand narrative of traditional theology?
Before getting to a possible answer, Schrag returns to what he considers as the birth of postmodernity: Nietzsche’s writing of the death of God[1]. Schrag defines this type of atheism as essentially reactive: “it calls for a negation of the concept of a supernatural being in classical theism as well as a negation of the God of cultural Christianity” (Schrag, 46). Nietzsche criticizes the weakness and pitiful nature of the God of classical theism who is devoid of power. For Schrag, Nietzsche’s will to power signifies a call to creativity, but devoid of any moral import: “What is required is a creation of the self informed by aesthetic possibilities rather than ethical imperatives” ( Schrag, 49). Another form of reactive atheism is found in Freud. Whatever the truth to his entire theory of religion as mass neurosis, Schrag thinks that Freud has pointed to the problem in classical theism of our tendency to anthropomorphize God. Jean-Paul Sartre is another reactive atheist who radically demonstrates within his own metaphysical dualism that the concept of God itself is a contradiction. God is the being-for-itself-in-itself. However, this is an impossible unity because such a being would stop being a for-itself because the definition of the for-itself is concerned with a becoming of what it is not yet.
Yet the problem is that atheism is stuck in the space of God as a being. What about God as otherwise than being? Returning to the tradition of the via negativa, Schrag reads a text of Plato in order to understand negation in a fascinating way: “negation, in the guise of nonbeing, should be understood specifically with the help of the superform of difference…Nonbeing retains an unbroken liason with being” (Schrag, 60). With a few steps in between, this points toward alterity and otherness. This leads away from God as a being to Levinas’ concept of God as Wholly Other; from ontology to ethics; and eventually to a semantics of the gift.
In their efforts to move away from the metaphysics of presence, both Derrida and Heidegger seem to move toward the ethical realm through Derrida’s emphasis on responsibility and Heidegger’s on Ereignis, or, event of appropriation. Levinas also critiques traditional metaphysics of presence through his engagement with Husserl. For Levinas, the problem with Husserl is that he continued to “think about the relationship between me and the other in terms of knowledge” (Schrag, 80). Instead, Levinas radicalizes and reformulates the notion of the subject and insists that the ethical realm be the locus of transcendence. It is in the concrete face of the neighbor that God becomes present, not through ontology or metaphysics. But how does God become present? Schrag locates this in the grammar of the Derridean trace. However, at this point the trace only helps him to formulate the question: “In what manner does the infinite ‘come to me’ as a trace in the face of my neighbor?” (Schrag, 82).
Schrag begins this investigation within the conflict between the priestly and the prophetic; the ethical and the sacramental. In the prophetic or ethical realm, temporality in Kierkegaard’s and Heidegger’s sense offers a new sense of presence. The coming to presence is not one isolated moment of time, but rather an “opportune moment” which is located between the past and the future. Time in this sense is defined not as a passing of moments, but as lived time. The emphasis on temporality marks a shift from the name of God to a focus on narrative: “The meaning of presence of the Deity cannot be captured in an exercise of trying to find the right name. It requires a broader context of considerations of narrative as a form of life” (Schrag, 88). Yet, presence still needs to be conceived also in the sacramental realm. Schrag suggests Jean-Luc Marion’s theory of the Eucharist as a possible answer to the outmoded theory of transubstantiation: Marion thinks the Eucharist in terms of a gift of charity. Even though Schrag takes issue with this because it is only works under particular authority and thus may still be subject to idolatry of the secular, he thinks Marion’s theory of the gift is useful.
However, it is this word “theory” that Schrag wants to get away from and instead replace it with praxis: “It is both linguistic and behavioral, text and texture, at once a narrative and a lived history” (Schrag, 95). In short, Schrag emphasizes the whole of lived experience: facticity, potentiality-for-being, embodiment, nature, culture—all of these are part of life as praxis. Praxis breaks down the distinctions of the sacramental and the ethical; discourse and action, etc. Kierkegaard’s “stages of existence” are useful to help formulate a possible transcendence: the sacramental and the ethical are lower than the religious. For Schrag, the “ethico-religious” stage is somehow related to the region of the gift.
At the beginning of the last section of the book, Schrag points to Derrida for his problematizing of the gift. Derrida thinks that when a gift is within a network of exchange relations, the giving of a gift negates itself as a gift. Thus, for Derrida, a true gift is impossible. However, gift giving is only impossible within a consumer based network of exchange relations. Schrag wants to see whether there is a gift that is located outside of our ethical and social life, which is stuck in this system of economic exchange. He finds this type of gift in caritas: a charitable and unconditional love as a gift that asks for nothing in return. Against Derrida, the gift is not necessarily negated as soon as it is given, if we focus on the aspect of acknowledgement instead of recognition. For example, “One acknowledges a former mentor by thanking him or her for the gift of knowledge…by becoming a mentor for others within a centrifugal space of reaching out to the other” (Schrag, 120). Acknowledgement thus sets off a chain of reactions toward others originally outside of the gift-giving, instead of puts a burden on the receiver to the gift giver. At the risk of oversimplifying, it sounds like Schrag has philosophically justified the ethic of the film Pay it Forward. However, Schrag does not want to remain in the space of the ethical. Instead, the gift transcends the ethical and, ultimately, anticipates the Kingdom of God: “although the Kingdom of God has not yet come, it has already begun to come, and it is always beginning to come” (Schrag, 135). For Schrag, this thinking is already contained in Kierkegaard’s philosophy: “To love is to hope, to be projected into the future, to exist as possibility. And it is as possibility that the eternal becomes incarnate in the temporal” (Schrag, 136). The gift is a manifestation of the event that is always to-come within the temporal realm. Schrag even gives specific instances of aneconomic gifts that point toward completed justice such as the saving of thousands of Jews from death camps in the town of La Chambon.
For such a short book, Schrag packs in a ton of ideas difficult to summarize. However, while reading the book Schrag never leaves you without a full explanation of where he is and where he is going. I think this book is a great way for understanding how theology got to the point where it is at now through the shift from being to becoming; essence to event.
Works Cited
Schrag, Calvin, O. God as Otherwise Than Being: Toward a Semantics of the Gift.
Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2002.
[1] Interestingly enough, Schrag does not mention the rest of this statement: “and we have killed him.” Perhaps it is because he sees it as tangential to his argument, but I beg to differ. It is the killing of the mystery of God in the metaphysical tradition that brought God down to our level. Nietzsche may be simulatenously announcing the death of the Onto-theological God and the death of God that was brought about by this onto-theology.
Michel Foucault, Power / Knowledge
Michael Simpkins
Philosophy 352 – Report #2
Deeper insight into difficult texts is often aided through dialogues with the respective author of a particular work. Power/Knowledge, a collection of interviews, conversations, and lectures with or by Michel Foucault does exactly that. It offers the invaluable interpretation of Foucault’s work by Foucault himself and raises a number of questions that can assist to further the understanding of his different projects. Foucault covers a range of topics from architecture to the medical profession and even infant sexuality. This is not, however, a haphazard focus. Through these different topics Foucault continually attempted to portray both how power operates and what exactly it has become.
The primary misunderstanding of contemporary thought with regards to power stems from a vestige of medieval life. During the feudal period the idea of the sovereign as the seat of power worked well to explain, at a minimum, how power was acquired, how it was held, and how it operated. Foucault likened power to a commodity either taken by an individual or passed from one to another. This worked, albeit incompletely, for that period because the theory need only remain “confined to the general mechanisms of power, to the way in which its forms of existence at the higher level of society influenced its exercise at the lowest levels.”[i] Power was assumed by an individual and their decrees were eventually passed down to the lowest subjects. Their acquiescence was attained through a number of measures, but mainly by example. If one refused to obey, harsh measures were taken, but not to adjust the behavior, simply to frighten others into not disobeying. Obviously, this is an oversimplification, but the presentation works to elucidate how power has evolved.
This idea of the sovereign is inadequate to account for how power began shifting during the eighteenth century and continues to evolve, how it moved beyond the exclusive realm of the State. Contemporary theory errs because it continues to conceptualize power in this antiquated form. With the Industrial Revolution, power became dispersed and “conceived” in a manner in which production was assured alongside class domination.[ii] Furthermore, it became clear that it was “more efficient and profitable” to surveil rather than punish.[iii] With the rise of the State apparatus, however, a parallel theory failed to materialize. Thus many revolutionaries continue to view the State as the locus of power when in fact, no such center remains. Power is “a machine in which everyone is caught, those who exercise power just as much as those over whom it is exercised.”[iv] A flawed understanding results from “locating power in the State apparatus, making this into the major, privileged, capital and almost unique instrument of the power of one class over another.”[v] This is key to much of Foucault’s thought, “we need to cut off the King’s head: in political theory that has still to be done.”[vi]
Rather than searching for the apex of power to identify the genesis of oppression, Foucault contends that to understand power one must search it out at the margins to see not where it comes from, but how it operates. Power is now extended on a level never realized under the feudal system, it “goes much further, passes through much finer channels, and is more ambiguous, since each individual has at his disposal a certain power, and for that very reason can also act as the vehicle for transmitting a wider power.”[vii] This explains much of Foucault’s interest in people on the periphery: criminals, children, and the infirm. He is seeking out the “mechanisms” of power at the margins, and these groups are ideal for understanding how power is effected on certain groups of people. Undoubtedly, these are the most repressed groups of society and if power is “an organ of repression…should not the analysis of power be first and foremost an analysis of the mechanisms of repression?”[viii] This type of analysis results in a less muddled image of power because, with these people, the transmission is largely one-way. Power in society exists much like a hierarchical web and nearly everyone shares in it. It is many things, but one thing it is certainly not is a chain that stretches from the top.[ix] Therefore, to identify and understand it, it must be sought out at the lowest levels and then constructed from the bottom up. This is why the Sovereign theory of top-down power is simply no longer useful.
One of the more interesting theories explained in this work is that of genealogies. Empirical history focused on nothing but kings and wars, almost entirely ignoring the struggles of the masses. Though the transitory periods whereby power was taken or lost are important, Foucault emphasizes the importance of the periods of so-called peace. After the armed conflict is over and the new political process is established by the victors, the only thing achieved is a sort of “pseudo-peace.” The resulting structure ensures that the inequity achieved by the dominant in war is protected. Far from being any type of compromise, “the role of political power…is perpetually to re-inscribe this relation through a form of unspoken warfare; to re-inscribe it in social institutions, in economic inequalities, in language, in the bodies themselves of each and every one of us.”[x] The project of combating oppression, given this awareness, must take on the task of teasing out these inequities and injustices. This is where genealogy comes in. Foucault believes that the people have a history that may be accessed, though it remains very much suppressed. In these popular histories are recorded all of the “struggles together with the rude memory of their conflicts.”[xi] But this other history is not a subject itself, that is, the people or any other group within that heading (the insane, degenerate, etc.) is not an entity continually acted upon by different forces through history. This whole notion of subject must be avoided, and in its place should be genealogy, “a form of history which can account for the constitution of knowledges, discourses, domains of objects etc., without having to make reference to a subject which is either transcendental in relation to the field of events or runs in its empty sameness throughout the course of history.” Rather than asking, “how is it that things occurred?” ask instead, “what underlying conditions would be necessary for the things which happened to have happened?” Underlying these numerous mechanisms that allow for power to be affected is the economy; “the historical raison d’etre of political power is to be found in the economy.”[xii] Power is dispersed throughout the modern economy as each individual within the system is both subject to power and exercises it over others. Because of this vast interconnection Foucault attempts investigations into the natures of these connections and especially those connections which remain largely unexplored.[xiii]
This new interpretation of power allows for the explanation of how certain situations, previously unintended, result, and are then absorbed by the structure to further the aims of the ruling class. Two examples will better explain how this works. The first is criminality and imprisonment. The original idea, though quickly disproven, was to reform criminals in prisons so they would better operate in a market economy, in a word, to be productive. From the outset, however, it was almost immediately realized that prisons not only failed in this aim, it made the situation even worse. Those who engaged in criminal behavior became even more consistent in their tendencies and those innocents sent to prison became, upon their release, more likely to commit crimes. Instead of abolishing the system those in charge became aware that these individuals could perform a valuable function, for “criminals come in handy.”[xiv] This new “criminal class” was used as justification for expanded police powers. These new forms of surveillance were imperative in a society where the masses are in physical contact with the means of production—the machines and each other. The more crime was committed, which primarily affected the poor, the more the people desired expanded police protections and powers. It served as a way to expand their powers over the people and to drive a wedge between the “moral” populace and the delinquents who might damage the stability of the system. Instead of reforming criminals, prisons served the purpose of insuring that they were taught nothing and could therefore do nothing but engage in criminal activity. The second example is that of infant sexuality, i.e. masturbation. Foucault, by researching primary documents of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, recognized that infant sexuality was never an issue until the latter century. And it is not that the subject was taboo either, manuals were published that discussed it quite openly but for the purpose of suppressing the behavior. Foucault argues that the ruling class never cared a moment for infant sexuality, what they cared about was control. But this new control had unforeseen benefits for the economy. If sex is repressed you can sell sexuality. Foucault mentions how this is done by the sell of such products like suntan lotion, and today the examples are nearly endless: clothes, beer, cologne, etc. The result of this repression, and many others, is continually re-inscribed by the ruling class for productive ends.
While much of this work may seem intended for intellectual discourse, Foucault was attempting something more applicable for the common people. He sought to redirect focus away from the State and towards the mechanisms that actually opposed the people on a daily basis. Only by this correct understanding of power could anything progress, “the problem is not changing people’s consciousness—or what’s in their heads—but the political, economic, institutional regime of the production of truth.”[xv]
[i] Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977, ed. Colin Gordon (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972), 104.
[ii] Foucault, 88.
[iii] Foucault, 38.
[iv] Foucault, 156.
[v] Foucault, 72.
[vi] Foucault, 121.
[vii] Foucault, 72.
[viii] Foucault, 90.
[ix] Foucault, 98.
[x] Foucault, 90.
[xi] Foucault, 83.
[xii] Foucault, 89.
[xiii] Foucault, 194.
[xiv] Foucault, 40.
[xv] Foucault, 133.
Philosophy 352 – Report #2
Deeper insight into difficult texts is often aided through dialogues with the respective author of a particular work. Power/Knowledge, a collection of interviews, conversations, and lectures with or by Michel Foucault does exactly that. It offers the invaluable interpretation of Foucault’s work by Foucault himself and raises a number of questions that can assist to further the understanding of his different projects. Foucault covers a range of topics from architecture to the medical profession and even infant sexuality. This is not, however, a haphazard focus. Through these different topics Foucault continually attempted to portray both how power operates and what exactly it has become.
The primary misunderstanding of contemporary thought with regards to power stems from a vestige of medieval life. During the feudal period the idea of the sovereign as the seat of power worked well to explain, at a minimum, how power was acquired, how it was held, and how it operated. Foucault likened power to a commodity either taken by an individual or passed from one to another. This worked, albeit incompletely, for that period because the theory need only remain “confined to the general mechanisms of power, to the way in which its forms of existence at the higher level of society influenced its exercise at the lowest levels.”[i] Power was assumed by an individual and their decrees were eventually passed down to the lowest subjects. Their acquiescence was attained through a number of measures, but mainly by example. If one refused to obey, harsh measures were taken, but not to adjust the behavior, simply to frighten others into not disobeying. Obviously, this is an oversimplification, but the presentation works to elucidate how power has evolved.
This idea of the sovereign is inadequate to account for how power began shifting during the eighteenth century and continues to evolve, how it moved beyond the exclusive realm of the State. Contemporary theory errs because it continues to conceptualize power in this antiquated form. With the Industrial Revolution, power became dispersed and “conceived” in a manner in which production was assured alongside class domination.[ii] Furthermore, it became clear that it was “more efficient and profitable” to surveil rather than punish.[iii] With the rise of the State apparatus, however, a parallel theory failed to materialize. Thus many revolutionaries continue to view the State as the locus of power when in fact, no such center remains. Power is “a machine in which everyone is caught, those who exercise power just as much as those over whom it is exercised.”[iv] A flawed understanding results from “locating power in the State apparatus, making this into the major, privileged, capital and almost unique instrument of the power of one class over another.”[v] This is key to much of Foucault’s thought, “we need to cut off the King’s head: in political theory that has still to be done.”[vi]
Rather than searching for the apex of power to identify the genesis of oppression, Foucault contends that to understand power one must search it out at the margins to see not where it comes from, but how it operates. Power is now extended on a level never realized under the feudal system, it “goes much further, passes through much finer channels, and is more ambiguous, since each individual has at his disposal a certain power, and for that very reason can also act as the vehicle for transmitting a wider power.”[vii] This explains much of Foucault’s interest in people on the periphery: criminals, children, and the infirm. He is seeking out the “mechanisms” of power at the margins, and these groups are ideal for understanding how power is effected on certain groups of people. Undoubtedly, these are the most repressed groups of society and if power is “an organ of repression…should not the analysis of power be first and foremost an analysis of the mechanisms of repression?”[viii] This type of analysis results in a less muddled image of power because, with these people, the transmission is largely one-way. Power in society exists much like a hierarchical web and nearly everyone shares in it. It is many things, but one thing it is certainly not is a chain that stretches from the top.[ix] Therefore, to identify and understand it, it must be sought out at the lowest levels and then constructed from the bottom up. This is why the Sovereign theory of top-down power is simply no longer useful.
One of the more interesting theories explained in this work is that of genealogies. Empirical history focused on nothing but kings and wars, almost entirely ignoring the struggles of the masses. Though the transitory periods whereby power was taken or lost are important, Foucault emphasizes the importance of the periods of so-called peace. After the armed conflict is over and the new political process is established by the victors, the only thing achieved is a sort of “pseudo-peace.” The resulting structure ensures that the inequity achieved by the dominant in war is protected. Far from being any type of compromise, “the role of political power…is perpetually to re-inscribe this relation through a form of unspoken warfare; to re-inscribe it in social institutions, in economic inequalities, in language, in the bodies themselves of each and every one of us.”[x] The project of combating oppression, given this awareness, must take on the task of teasing out these inequities and injustices. This is where genealogy comes in. Foucault believes that the people have a history that may be accessed, though it remains very much suppressed. In these popular histories are recorded all of the “struggles together with the rude memory of their conflicts.”[xi] But this other history is not a subject itself, that is, the people or any other group within that heading (the insane, degenerate, etc.) is not an entity continually acted upon by different forces through history. This whole notion of subject must be avoided, and in its place should be genealogy, “a form of history which can account for the constitution of knowledges, discourses, domains of objects etc., without having to make reference to a subject which is either transcendental in relation to the field of events or runs in its empty sameness throughout the course of history.” Rather than asking, “how is it that things occurred?” ask instead, “what underlying conditions would be necessary for the things which happened to have happened?” Underlying these numerous mechanisms that allow for power to be affected is the economy; “the historical raison d’etre of political power is to be found in the economy.”[xii] Power is dispersed throughout the modern economy as each individual within the system is both subject to power and exercises it over others. Because of this vast interconnection Foucault attempts investigations into the natures of these connections and especially those connections which remain largely unexplored.[xiii]
This new interpretation of power allows for the explanation of how certain situations, previously unintended, result, and are then absorbed by the structure to further the aims of the ruling class. Two examples will better explain how this works. The first is criminality and imprisonment. The original idea, though quickly disproven, was to reform criminals in prisons so they would better operate in a market economy, in a word, to be productive. From the outset, however, it was almost immediately realized that prisons not only failed in this aim, it made the situation even worse. Those who engaged in criminal behavior became even more consistent in their tendencies and those innocents sent to prison became, upon their release, more likely to commit crimes. Instead of abolishing the system those in charge became aware that these individuals could perform a valuable function, for “criminals come in handy.”[xiv] This new “criminal class” was used as justification for expanded police powers. These new forms of surveillance were imperative in a society where the masses are in physical contact with the means of production—the machines and each other. The more crime was committed, which primarily affected the poor, the more the people desired expanded police protections and powers. It served as a way to expand their powers over the people and to drive a wedge between the “moral” populace and the delinquents who might damage the stability of the system. Instead of reforming criminals, prisons served the purpose of insuring that they were taught nothing and could therefore do nothing but engage in criminal activity. The second example is that of infant sexuality, i.e. masturbation. Foucault, by researching primary documents of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, recognized that infant sexuality was never an issue until the latter century. And it is not that the subject was taboo either, manuals were published that discussed it quite openly but for the purpose of suppressing the behavior. Foucault argues that the ruling class never cared a moment for infant sexuality, what they cared about was control. But this new control had unforeseen benefits for the economy. If sex is repressed you can sell sexuality. Foucault mentions how this is done by the sell of such products like suntan lotion, and today the examples are nearly endless: clothes, beer, cologne, etc. The result of this repression, and many others, is continually re-inscribed by the ruling class for productive ends.
While much of this work may seem intended for intellectual discourse, Foucault was attempting something more applicable for the common people. He sought to redirect focus away from the State and towards the mechanisms that actually opposed the people on a daily basis. Only by this correct understanding of power could anything progress, “the problem is not changing people’s consciousness—or what’s in their heads—but the political, economic, institutional regime of the production of truth.”[xv]
[i] Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977, ed. Colin Gordon (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972), 104.
[ii] Foucault, 88.
[iii] Foucault, 38.
[iv] Foucault, 156.
[v] Foucault, 72.
[vi] Foucault, 121.
[vii] Foucault, 72.
[viii] Foucault, 90.
[ix] Foucault, 98.
[x] Foucault, 90.
[xi] Foucault, 83.
[xii] Foucault, 89.
[xiii] Foucault, 194.
[xiv] Foucault, 40.
[xv] Foucault, 133.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Heidegger, Basic Writings
Jessica Rugh
Dr. Duane Davis
Phil 352
22 October 2008
Heidegger, Martin. Basic Writings. Revised and Expanded Edition. Ed. D. F. Krell. San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 1977.
This book is a collection of essays and excerpts from the major works of Martin Heidegger. The introduction to Being and Time is also included. Before each selection Krell provides a brief exposition of the context of the piece and its place among Heidegger’s other works. In the introduction to the collection Krell provides a basic exploration of the question of being, in the sense of Being and, in a way, of the being Martin Heidegger. The introduction is simultaneously a brief history of Heidegger’s life and career, an exposition of Heidegger’s major works (with a particular focus on Being and Time and its place in Heidegger’s thought development), an analysis of the progression of Heidegger’s thought during his career, and an offering of differing opinions on the influence of Heidegger’s ideas. The introduction itself was easy to read, fairly concise, and helpful in its straightforward explanation of Heidegger’s interpretation of key terms (such as Dasein, alētheia, etc.). “Basic writings”, however, may be a slightly misleading title.
There are ten selections provided in this text, plus the introduction to Being and Time. As I was unable to read them all, I will report on those I did and only list the others.
1. Being and Time: Introduction
This is the first introduction to Being and Time, as translated by Joan Stambaugh. Please see my précis for a summary and analysis of this selection.
2. What is Metaphysics?
This selection seeks to confront the question “what is metaphysics?” It is divided into three sections in which Heidegger breaks down the metaphysical question in order to give it “the proper occasion to introduce itself” (p.93). In the first section he examines “the unfolding of a metaphysical inquiry” and decides that “the metaphysical inquiry must be posed as a whole and from the essential position of the existence [Dasein] that questions” (p.93-94). He proposes to do this by examining being and nothing. Krell defines nothing to be a name for mysterious aspects of existence and also as “the openness of Being as such” (p.91). The next section elaborates on “how it is with the nothing” (p.96). Herein Heidegger defines the nothing as “the negation of the totality of beings” and as “nonbeing pure and simple” (p.97). He then claims that the nothing is not the same as negation and describes the relationship between the nothing, negation, and the intellect. Heidegger examines feelings and moods, primarily the differences between anxiety and fear (as we encountered in Being and Time), and he shows that anxiety reveals the nothing. The last section responds to the question of metaphysics in the context of Dasein’s relationship to the nothing. Heidegger says, “Dasein in anxiety is the essence of the nothing” or “nihilation” (p.103). Dasein relates itself to beings by “holding itself out into the nothing” and “pure being and pure nothing are the same” (p.108). On this note, Heidegger concludes by claiming that “as long as man exists, philosophizing of some sort occurs.”
This selection (a lecture from 1929) was fairly easy to read and could serve as an interesting supplement to a deeper understanding of Being and Time as it provides an expansion of the stage of development of Heidegger’s thought as presented in Being and Time, particularly on the role of anxiety in Dasein.
3. On the Essence of Truth
In this selection Heidegger is looking at “the one thing that in general distinguishes every ‘truth’ as truth” (p.115). He does not want to look at truth in a particular sense, however, such as truths of scientific research or economic calculation. He begins with an exploration of the “ordinary understanding” of truth. For example, a usual understanding of truth is such as is used in the distinguishing of true gold from false gold (p.117). True in this sense has the connotation of genuine or “being in accord”. He points out that truth has an opposite: untruth.
Heidegger then performs a deeper examination of accordance and its connection to “correctness” (p.120-123). This, of course, warrants a deeper look at correctness. He says, “the openness of comportment as the inner condition of the possibility of correctness is grounded in freedom” and therefore, “the essence of truth is freedom” (p.123). Next he seeks to uncover the essence of freedom. “Freedom reveals itself as letting beings be” (p.125). Heidegger then introduces his interpretation of the Greek word alētheia as “unconcealment” instead of “truth” and argues that this interpretation demands a rethinking of truth as it connects to the concepts of correctness and disclosedness. A dense testimony of the relationship between freedom, truth, “letting be” and disclosedness follows, until Heidegger claims that we can now say something about the essence of truth: that it “reveals itself as freedom” (p.128). He revisits untruth and shows how it can be understood to be concealing and errancy. He concludes by maintaining that “the question of the essence of truth arises from the question of the truth of essence” (p.137).
This selection was particularly difficult for me in that the connotations carried by various words in different contexts seemed to play a big role in Heidegger’s interpretation of them and therefore in the reader’s correct understanding of the text. Perhaps this problem is why the fact that words carry varying contexts was the focus of this essay. In any case, this would be an interesting piece for anyone wishing for a deeper understanding of Heidegger’s interpretation of specific words or for someone interested in Heideggarian etymology.
4. The Origin of the Work of Art
5. Letter on Humanism
6. Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics
This selection is Heidegger’s attempt to define the mathematical and its place in his metaphysics. He begins by comparing and contrasting ancient and modern conceptions of the mathematical. He believes that both ancient and modern approaches deal with both facts and conceptions and exposes some common ideas of what ancient and medieval sciences did in the realm of mathematics. For Heidegger, modern science is mathematical (p.273) and he further claims that the essence of the mathematical is “the fundamental presupposition of the knowledge of things” (p.278).
So what is mathematics? He provides an account of traditional Greek identifications of the mathematical, including an examination of etymology. For example, the word mathēsis means learning, and mathēmata signifies the learnable. For Heidegger, then, mathēmata can be interpreted as “that ‘about’ things which we really know” (p.275). The next section concerns in what sense the foundation of modern thought and knowledge is mathematical. Heidegger describes Newton’s first law of motion and how it contributed to the mathematical foundation of modern science. He then provides an in-depth comparison of Greek and modern approaches to science. This includes: 1) an analysis of Aristotle versus Newton’s conceptions of nature; 2) Aristotle’s conception of motion; and 3) Newton on motion, which is namely a revisiting of the first law of motion. Within each of these sections he touches on their connection to modern science.
Heidegger then adds Galileo’s experiments to his project of understanding of the mathematical. In doing so he discovers that “there unfolds the entire realm of posing questions and experiments, establishing laws, and disclosing new regions of beings” which in turn open up further questions (p.293). Such questions include “whether motion is sufficiently formulated by the designation ‘change of location’” and the like (p.293). One of these questions is also concerning “the justification and limits of mathematical formalism in contrast to the demand for an immediate return to intuitively given nature” (p.294).
The last section is a look “at the metaphysical meaning of the mathematical” wherein Heidegger examines the association of Dasein to the mathematical. He divides this question into 1) “what new fundamental position of Dasein shows itself in this rise of the dominance of the mathematical?”; and 2) “how does the mathematical…drive toward an ascent to a metaphysical determination of Dasein” (p.295). He glosses over the first question by answering that “the mathematical strives out of itself to establish its own essence as the ground of itself and thus of all knowledge” and moves on to the second question, which he considers more important (p.296). In other words, he wants to know “in what way does modern metaphysics arise out of the spirit of the mathematical?” (p.296). Heidegger begins the answering of this question with a brief outline of the history of scientific philosophical work and an analysis of Descartes’ conception of “I”, such as it is in the idea “cogito ergo sum”. He concludes by claiming that the “I-principle” and the principle of contradiction [between subject and object, as reversed in the cogito] become metaphysics, wherein “the question about the thing is now anchored in pure reason, i.e., in the mathematical unfolding of its principles” (p.305).
This selection may be useful for someone studying Heidegger’s thought as it differs from previous schools of thought, or for someone who likes math. It could even be useful for someone desiring a deeper understanding of Descartes’ ideas.
7. The Question Concerning Technology
8. Building Dwelling Thinking
This piece was, in my opinion, very out of the ordinary for Heidegger. Its style was extremely different from the style that we have encountered in Being and Time and from the other pieces in this collection. Perhaps the most amazing characteristic of “Building Dwelling Thinking” is that, at least in relation to other works by Heidegger, it was actually pleasant to read. At the same time it was difficult and unclear, for the flowery, poetic technique was still incredibly dense if this piece is supposed to be taken as an asset to understanding Heidegger’s philosophy.
“Building Dwelling Thinking”, one component of a three part lecture from 1951, exhibits Heidegger’s interest in technology. Technology, for Heidegger, according to Kwell, “opposes…the place where the truth of Being, disclosedness, happens” (p.344). In this piece Heidegger seeks to expose the relationship of building to dwelling and their relationship to thinking. Heidegger says his goal is “to think about dwelling and building” (p.347). To do so, he asks two questions: 1) What is it to dwell?; and 2) how does building belong to dwelling? In the answering of the first question Heidegger traces different interpretations and definitions of words. For example, bauen means “to dwell” in Old High German, and in Old Saxon the word wuon similarly means “to stay in a place” (p.349-350). Heidegger plays with the cultural distinctions of these words and the connotations that they have evolved to possess. He then shifts gears to the connection between earth and sky and the beings therein, namely divinities and mortals. He targets “the fourfold”—earth and sky, divinities and mortals—as having a “primal oneness” that is contained in any interpretation of dwelling. He continues:
Earth is the serving bearer, blossoming and fruiting, spreading out in rock and water, rising up into plant and animal…The sky is the vaulting path of the sun, the course of the changing, moon, the wandering glitter of the stars, the year's seasons and their changes, the light and dusk of day, the gloom and glow of night, the clemency and inclemency of the weather, the drifting clouds and blue depth of the ether…The divinities are the beckoning messengers of the godhead. Out of the holy sway of the godhead, the god appears in his presence or withdraws into his concealment…The mortals are the human beings. They are called mortals because they can die. To die means to be capable of death as death. Only man dies, and indeed continually, as long as remains on earth, under the sky, before the divinities.
Each part of the fourfold also implies that when we speak of one “we are already thinking of the other three along with them, but we give no thought to the simple oneness of the four” (p.351-352).
The second question, on the relation of building to dwelling, is written in the same symbolic, poetic language. Heidegger relates objects such as bridges to the earth, perpetuating the idea of the fourfold in our understanding of the world, and includes more etymology. By the conclusion, he generally succeeds in explaining that there is a deep connection between dwelling and building and that dwelling “is the basic character of Being” (p.362).
9. What Calls for Thinking?
10. The Way to Language
11. The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking
Overall, I think Basic Writings is an interesting collection of Heidegger’s works. It was certainly helpful for a deeper understanding of Heidegger’s thought development and provided a useful clarification of his terminology and true meaning of words and concepts in Being and Time. The topics of each selection were greatly varied and as such can appeal to people of a variety of interests and backgrounds, which was, according to his introduction, one of Kwell’s reasons for including them together, but collectively they are clearly interrelated and enable one to grasp a more insightful perspective on the scope of Heidegger’s work as a whole. If nothing else, you should read “Building Dwelling Thinking” for a change of pace as it may be even more entertaining and thought-provoking than Being and Time itself.
Dr. Duane Davis
Phil 352
22 October 2008
Heidegger, Martin. Basic Writings. Revised and Expanded Edition. Ed. D. F. Krell. San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 1977.
This book is a collection of essays and excerpts from the major works of Martin Heidegger. The introduction to Being and Time is also included. Before each selection Krell provides a brief exposition of the context of the piece and its place among Heidegger’s other works. In the introduction to the collection Krell provides a basic exploration of the question of being, in the sense of Being and, in a way, of the being Martin Heidegger. The introduction is simultaneously a brief history of Heidegger’s life and career, an exposition of Heidegger’s major works (with a particular focus on Being and Time and its place in Heidegger’s thought development), an analysis of the progression of Heidegger’s thought during his career, and an offering of differing opinions on the influence of Heidegger’s ideas. The introduction itself was easy to read, fairly concise, and helpful in its straightforward explanation of Heidegger’s interpretation of key terms (such as Dasein, alētheia, etc.). “Basic writings”, however, may be a slightly misleading title.
There are ten selections provided in this text, plus the introduction to Being and Time. As I was unable to read them all, I will report on those I did and only list the others.
1. Being and Time: Introduction
This is the first introduction to Being and Time, as translated by Joan Stambaugh. Please see my précis for a summary and analysis of this selection.
2. What is Metaphysics?
This selection seeks to confront the question “what is metaphysics?” It is divided into three sections in which Heidegger breaks down the metaphysical question in order to give it “the proper occasion to introduce itself” (p.93). In the first section he examines “the unfolding of a metaphysical inquiry” and decides that “the metaphysical inquiry must be posed as a whole and from the essential position of the existence [Dasein] that questions” (p.93-94). He proposes to do this by examining being and nothing. Krell defines nothing to be a name for mysterious aspects of existence and also as “the openness of Being as such” (p.91). The next section elaborates on “how it is with the nothing” (p.96). Herein Heidegger defines the nothing as “the negation of the totality of beings” and as “nonbeing pure and simple” (p.97). He then claims that the nothing is not the same as negation and describes the relationship between the nothing, negation, and the intellect. Heidegger examines feelings and moods, primarily the differences between anxiety and fear (as we encountered in Being and Time), and he shows that anxiety reveals the nothing. The last section responds to the question of metaphysics in the context of Dasein’s relationship to the nothing. Heidegger says, “Dasein in anxiety is the essence of the nothing” or “nihilation” (p.103). Dasein relates itself to beings by “holding itself out into the nothing” and “pure being and pure nothing are the same” (p.108). On this note, Heidegger concludes by claiming that “as long as man exists, philosophizing of some sort occurs.”
This selection (a lecture from 1929) was fairly easy to read and could serve as an interesting supplement to a deeper understanding of Being and Time as it provides an expansion of the stage of development of Heidegger’s thought as presented in Being and Time, particularly on the role of anxiety in Dasein.
3. On the Essence of Truth
In this selection Heidegger is looking at “the one thing that in general distinguishes every ‘truth’ as truth” (p.115). He does not want to look at truth in a particular sense, however, such as truths of scientific research or economic calculation. He begins with an exploration of the “ordinary understanding” of truth. For example, a usual understanding of truth is such as is used in the distinguishing of true gold from false gold (p.117). True in this sense has the connotation of genuine or “being in accord”. He points out that truth has an opposite: untruth.
Heidegger then performs a deeper examination of accordance and its connection to “correctness” (p.120-123). This, of course, warrants a deeper look at correctness. He says, “the openness of comportment as the inner condition of the possibility of correctness is grounded in freedom” and therefore, “the essence of truth is freedom” (p.123). Next he seeks to uncover the essence of freedom. “Freedom reveals itself as letting beings be” (p.125). Heidegger then introduces his interpretation of the Greek word alētheia as “unconcealment” instead of “truth” and argues that this interpretation demands a rethinking of truth as it connects to the concepts of correctness and disclosedness. A dense testimony of the relationship between freedom, truth, “letting be” and disclosedness follows, until Heidegger claims that we can now say something about the essence of truth: that it “reveals itself as freedom” (p.128). He revisits untruth and shows how it can be understood to be concealing and errancy. He concludes by maintaining that “the question of the essence of truth arises from the question of the truth of essence” (p.137).
This selection was particularly difficult for me in that the connotations carried by various words in different contexts seemed to play a big role in Heidegger’s interpretation of them and therefore in the reader’s correct understanding of the text. Perhaps this problem is why the fact that words carry varying contexts was the focus of this essay. In any case, this would be an interesting piece for anyone wishing for a deeper understanding of Heidegger’s interpretation of specific words or for someone interested in Heideggarian etymology.
4. The Origin of the Work of Art
5. Letter on Humanism
6. Modern Science, Metaphysics, and Mathematics
This selection is Heidegger’s attempt to define the mathematical and its place in his metaphysics. He begins by comparing and contrasting ancient and modern conceptions of the mathematical. He believes that both ancient and modern approaches deal with both facts and conceptions and exposes some common ideas of what ancient and medieval sciences did in the realm of mathematics. For Heidegger, modern science is mathematical (p.273) and he further claims that the essence of the mathematical is “the fundamental presupposition of the knowledge of things” (p.278).
So what is mathematics? He provides an account of traditional Greek identifications of the mathematical, including an examination of etymology. For example, the word mathēsis means learning, and mathēmata signifies the learnable. For Heidegger, then, mathēmata can be interpreted as “that ‘about’ things which we really know” (p.275). The next section concerns in what sense the foundation of modern thought and knowledge is mathematical. Heidegger describes Newton’s first law of motion and how it contributed to the mathematical foundation of modern science. He then provides an in-depth comparison of Greek and modern approaches to science. This includes: 1) an analysis of Aristotle versus Newton’s conceptions of nature; 2) Aristotle’s conception of motion; and 3) Newton on motion, which is namely a revisiting of the first law of motion. Within each of these sections he touches on their connection to modern science.
Heidegger then adds Galileo’s experiments to his project of understanding of the mathematical. In doing so he discovers that “there unfolds the entire realm of posing questions and experiments, establishing laws, and disclosing new regions of beings” which in turn open up further questions (p.293). Such questions include “whether motion is sufficiently formulated by the designation ‘change of location’” and the like (p.293). One of these questions is also concerning “the justification and limits of mathematical formalism in contrast to the demand for an immediate return to intuitively given nature” (p.294).
The last section is a look “at the metaphysical meaning of the mathematical” wherein Heidegger examines the association of Dasein to the mathematical. He divides this question into 1) “what new fundamental position of Dasein shows itself in this rise of the dominance of the mathematical?”; and 2) “how does the mathematical…drive toward an ascent to a metaphysical determination of Dasein” (p.295). He glosses over the first question by answering that “the mathematical strives out of itself to establish its own essence as the ground of itself and thus of all knowledge” and moves on to the second question, which he considers more important (p.296). In other words, he wants to know “in what way does modern metaphysics arise out of the spirit of the mathematical?” (p.296). Heidegger begins the answering of this question with a brief outline of the history of scientific philosophical work and an analysis of Descartes’ conception of “I”, such as it is in the idea “cogito ergo sum”. He concludes by claiming that the “I-principle” and the principle of contradiction [between subject and object, as reversed in the cogito] become metaphysics, wherein “the question about the thing is now anchored in pure reason, i.e., in the mathematical unfolding of its principles” (p.305).
This selection may be useful for someone studying Heidegger’s thought as it differs from previous schools of thought, or for someone who likes math. It could even be useful for someone desiring a deeper understanding of Descartes’ ideas.
7. The Question Concerning Technology
8. Building Dwelling Thinking
This piece was, in my opinion, very out of the ordinary for Heidegger. Its style was extremely different from the style that we have encountered in Being and Time and from the other pieces in this collection. Perhaps the most amazing characteristic of “Building Dwelling Thinking” is that, at least in relation to other works by Heidegger, it was actually pleasant to read. At the same time it was difficult and unclear, for the flowery, poetic technique was still incredibly dense if this piece is supposed to be taken as an asset to understanding Heidegger’s philosophy.
“Building Dwelling Thinking”, one component of a three part lecture from 1951, exhibits Heidegger’s interest in technology. Technology, for Heidegger, according to Kwell, “opposes…the place where the truth of Being, disclosedness, happens” (p.344). In this piece Heidegger seeks to expose the relationship of building to dwelling and their relationship to thinking. Heidegger says his goal is “to think about dwelling and building” (p.347). To do so, he asks two questions: 1) What is it to dwell?; and 2) how does building belong to dwelling? In the answering of the first question Heidegger traces different interpretations and definitions of words. For example, bauen means “to dwell” in Old High German, and in Old Saxon the word wuon similarly means “to stay in a place” (p.349-350). Heidegger plays with the cultural distinctions of these words and the connotations that they have evolved to possess. He then shifts gears to the connection between earth and sky and the beings therein, namely divinities and mortals. He targets “the fourfold”—earth and sky, divinities and mortals—as having a “primal oneness” that is contained in any interpretation of dwelling. He continues:
Earth is the serving bearer, blossoming and fruiting, spreading out in rock and water, rising up into plant and animal…The sky is the vaulting path of the sun, the course of the changing, moon, the wandering glitter of the stars, the year's seasons and their changes, the light and dusk of day, the gloom and glow of night, the clemency and inclemency of the weather, the drifting clouds and blue depth of the ether…The divinities are the beckoning messengers of the godhead. Out of the holy sway of the godhead, the god appears in his presence or withdraws into his concealment…The mortals are the human beings. They are called mortals because they can die. To die means to be capable of death as death. Only man dies, and indeed continually, as long as remains on earth, under the sky, before the divinities.
Each part of the fourfold also implies that when we speak of one “we are already thinking of the other three along with them, but we give no thought to the simple oneness of the four” (p.351-352).
The second question, on the relation of building to dwelling, is written in the same symbolic, poetic language. Heidegger relates objects such as bridges to the earth, perpetuating the idea of the fourfold in our understanding of the world, and includes more etymology. By the conclusion, he generally succeeds in explaining that there is a deep connection between dwelling and building and that dwelling “is the basic character of Being” (p.362).
9. What Calls for Thinking?
10. The Way to Language
11. The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking
Overall, I think Basic Writings is an interesting collection of Heidegger’s works. It was certainly helpful for a deeper understanding of Heidegger’s thought development and provided a useful clarification of his terminology and true meaning of words and concepts in Being and Time. The topics of each selection were greatly varied and as such can appeal to people of a variety of interests and backgrounds, which was, according to his introduction, one of Kwell’s reasons for including them together, but collectively they are clearly interrelated and enable one to grasp a more insightful perspective on the scope of Heidegger’s work as a whole. If nothing else, you should read “Building Dwelling Thinking” for a change of pace as it may be even more entertaining and thought-provoking than Being and Time itself.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Jacques Derrida, Of Spirit
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In a 1987 lecture, Heidegger: Open Questions, given by Jacques Derrida and afterwards transposed into a volume entitled, Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question, Derrida presents a critical analysis of the question of Being and the questioning of its meaning which is the focal point of Heideggerian philosophy. He examines this specifically in the light of another recurrent aspect of Heidegger’s work—that of Geist or spirit. Regarding this concept as one that is chronologically developed over the course of his works between 1927 and 1953, Derrida probes the shifting role of Geist and changes in Heidegger’s attitude toward it—between avoidance and glorification— and this is done especially in reference to philosophical nationalism and national socialism, in which Heidegger was involved. Moreover, three central themes are undertaken dealing with the question, animals, and technology. It is due to this variance of spirit in Heidegger, coupled with the nature of translation itself, that the meaning of “spirit” must be deconstructed, and given an “analytic of Gemüt” [disposition]. (22)
Derrida begins by questioning that which he has chosen to be the title this work, “Of Spirit”, acknowledging that “spirit” was never a title of any of Heidegger’s philosophical discourses, and hardly ever is there mention of spirit in terms of essence. While commenting how “no one ever speaks of spirit in Heidegger…even the anti-Heideggerrian specialists”, he still asserts that “…people avoid in their turn speaking of spirit in a work which nonetheless lets itself be magnetized, from its first to its last word, by that very thing”. He aims to perform an experiment of language, putting both German and his own native French to a “test of translation” so as to determine any level of interchangeability between Geist (including geistig, geistlich) and de l’Esprit. The objective here is to gain a transparency of meaning across languages, if possible, through translation and via deconstruction. Three initial arguments are given to this end. First, the aim of explicating the “quarrel” between the German language, and that of Rome, Latin, and Greek.(and thus to treat “of spirit”, as denoted by the Franco-Latin de) as well as attempting to describe a certain powerful force given to spirit in the German language particularly; second, Derrida wants to address a thematic element of spirit which is frequently inherent to very tense political atmospheres; lastly he says that if spirit cannot be classified thematically as just now mentioned, it needs another category of definition and is therefore not only “inscribed” in the political arena, but defines the “meaning…as such”. (1-13)
Delving into the question, Derrida says of Geist that “it is perhaps the name Heidegger gives…to this unquestioned possibility of the question”, and he says also that this is what “Heidegger wants to save from any destitution.” For him, Geist is contrary to the “thing” or “thing-ness”—it cannot be reified as with “the thingification of the subject, of the subjectivity of Descartes”; this must be partitioned in order to save the analytic of Dasein. Spirit, and similar words, is thus avoided, for they are tied to the Cartesian subjectum. Hence, the Fragen, the question itself and its possibility as such, provides the only “correct point of departure”. While Dasein is that which has “care for its Being”, Derrida says it can be indifferent by virtue of the fact that its being indifferent allows for the possibility of its interesting itself in the question of its own being—“[Dasein’s] indifference in this case is a modalization of its non-indifference.” He further elaborates on three types of indifference: the vorhandene being, such as an inanimate object; secondly, indifference as a “positive phenomenon of Dasein”; and lastly, that of the lack of urgency to ask the questions of Being, present before and since Descartes (to include Hegel), which allows for a “vulgar concept of time.” Desiring to escape such a paradigm, Heidegger avoids using the term “spirit” (much in the fashion of a Husserlian epoche, in a sense) by placing it in quotation marks; but in so doing, Derrida remarks that this is also an “un-avoidance” of the term. In this process, there is a “re-Germanization” of spirit occurring as the term comes to be appropriated again in relation to space and time. He avoids the traditional notion of spirit, for as Derrida explains, “it is by virtue of this ‘spirituality’ that Dasein is a being of space, and Heidegger even underlines it, only by virtue of such a spirituality.” As for time, Heidegger distinguishes his conception as different from that “vulgar” view of Hegel (since Hegel’s view of spirit continues in the path of the Cartesian cogito)—spirit is not external to time, it “exists as originary temporalization of temporality.” Furthermore, spirit does not “fall” into time, but from time to time, and hence, from spirit to spirit, thus into itself; in a related note Derrida says that, regardless of the presence of quotation marks or not, “spirit is not other than time”. (14-30)
In 1933 Martin Heidegger became rectorate of the German university in Freiburg, and spirit, free from quotation marks, returns to the fore anew as its own “double”, its own Geist, and “ghost”. In his Rectorship Address the face of spirit is transformed, in a “self-affirmation” of the German university and the “destiny” of the German people. In the address Heidegger defines spirit in terms of four categories: questioning (Fragen), and the responsibility that comes with it; the world; earth-and-blood; and resolution which gives its possibility of the opening to the authenticity of Dasein. In the address, spirit is first and foremost placed high on a pedestal. It is tied with history, “historicity”, in such a way that according to Derrida, their “union…makes of the Fragen the very assignment of spirit.” Here, the possibility of the Fragen is how one should interpret the “spirit of spiritual conduction”—spirit is then a “leap” to a questioning, the question—and this leap can only take place in a world which is necessarily spiritual. In fact, Heidegger says, “Spirituality is the name of that without which there is no world.” (51) Regarding this world of spirit, Derrida next continues to explain Dasein in relation to this spiritual having-of-a-world. The animal, though not Dasein, is described as having and not having a world. For instance, it has access to some tools, but not to art, or craftsmanship—thus, it is incapable of techné. It is not a “closed” entity such as being inanimate, rather the “animal is closed to the very o p e n ing of the entity” and has no access to faculties of meaningfully differentiating entities as such. This middle position of animality in regard to Dasein is described by Derrida as a difficulty present throughout Heidegger’s work which is “fundamentally teleological and traditional, not to say dialectical” (31-59)
As for the motivation from which Heidegger’s shifting expression of spirit gains direction, this is grounded in his desire to address a “destitution of spirit” which Heidegger views as a moving toward spirit, “from within it.” This again relates back to the movement of away from Cartesian preconceptions, but particularly Heidegger is concerned with spiritual “resignation” that he says is the cause of a misinterpretation of the meaning of spirit and thus also, of spirit itself. He focuses on four forms of this: that alongside understanding and mass-distribution (a debasement through over-rationalization of spirit); instrumentalization or “falsification” of spirit concerning technology and the precedence of the Fragen; the becoming of culture through resigning the spiritual world to instrumentalization; and finally a political appeal to spirit through cultural propaganda. Additionally, Heidegger sees evil as the “tormenting” of spirit, existing due to the division of Geist among men, and one source for this is the lack of “originary questioning.” Thus, spirit must be “re-awakened”; this task is a correlative aspect of the responsibility Heidegger attaches to a questioning, and for that matter, a questioning that is common to “a people”, and hence a linguistic community. German and Greek are given privilege in the question of Being (which is always has a ground in meaning), based on a spiritual quality made present in thought by their corresponding terminologies; but German ultimately surpasses this joint quality for Heidegger—“it is the only language in which spirit comes to name itself.” (58-72)
Moreover, Geist is “the unconditioned absolute which determines and gathers every entity.” (76) Derrida describes this as “that which gathers or in which what gathers is gathered.” Similarly, Heidegger has said, “In that it is a unity, spirit is das Wehen [breath].” Heidegger uses metaphor to describe spirit—aligning it with breath and respiration, its unity is brought about through love. As Heidegger sees spirit as a continual return to itself, (as Derrida states, “it is never at home”), spirit is characterized by a “nostalgia for its own essence.” Another metaphor employed is that of the likening of spirit to fire. This has bearing on the movement of spirit or soul, the latter being “given” by spirit (and not just lost by spirit upon one’s death). This movement Heidegger interprets conversely to Platonism, in that he sees meaning itself as what gives the soul direction; this occurs through a “listening to language.” (87-88) Geschlect, while nearly above translation and meaning anything from race, nation, stock, or generation, it is a geopolitical gathering of spirit, and it is said to be “fallen”. It is compared to its “following of a stranger” within the physical realm, not as though the soul or spirit were imprisoned but as though on a spiritual journey. Thus Derrida makes use of the term “revenant”, to describe Heidegger’s interpretive outlook of soul and spirit in his evaluation of Trakl’s poetry, for it is constantly returning to itself and its originary essence.
At the close, we are asked again, then, what is Geist? Derrida’s answer: “spirit-in-flames.” To help us understand this, he explains:
It is not a figure, not a metaphor. Heidegger, at least, would contest any rhetoricizing reading. One could attempt to bring the concepts of rhetoric to bear here only after making sure of some proper meaning for one or other of these words, spirit, flame, in such and such a determinate language, in such and such a text, in such and such a sentence. We are far from that and everything comes back to this difficulty. (96)
Indeed, everything does return to this ultimate difficulty, this paradoxical (inter)subjectivity of the metaphor—and this is especially so in regard to Geist, a spirit within its own spirit. We are constantly becoming lost within translation—yet it seems that it is here in the provenance of meaning in which we continually find ourselves. Thus as Derrida states, referring to the responsibility of questioning, “one must indeed sign this theorem over in one’s own language”, for the metaphorical symbolism of language is the medium of any thought, and thus any questioning of any Being. What is Being? How does one come to arrive at the opening of this questioning? The answer resides precisely in the consciousness of the asking, and certainly also the possibility of such an inquirer; but what of the conditions for the possibility of this interrogative experience? For Heidegger, this question (Fragen) is the condition, a conditionality revolving around the “care” of Da-sein, “the being for whom being is in question”; yet this inquiry is inextricably linked with Geist, or “spirit”, for Dasein is always a being-in-the-world, that is, a spiritual world. Geist makes possible such an existential inquiry—it allows for any sort of deconstruction of any meaning. In questioning Being, the complexity and breadth of inquiry is entirely contingent upon the contextual framework within which an individual may perform such an existential inquisition. The answer then, and hence the question, may well be one in the same. Just as Geist is to itself a duplicity, the two-fold question of being can become its own answer, via the materialization of the very inquiry. Certainly this question is solely one’s own, for the ‘individual’ [of] Dasein must affirm this responsibility within the idiom that guides their spiritual path to Truth—this is as it must be, if we are to learn to live within, live as, the Question.
Works Cited
Derrida, Jacques. Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question. Trans. Geoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1987.
In a 1987 lecture, Heidegger: Open Questions, given by Jacques Derrida and afterwards transposed into a volume entitled, Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question, Derrida presents a critical analysis of the question of Being and the questioning of its meaning which is the focal point of Heideggerian philosophy. He examines this specifically in the light of another recurrent aspect of Heidegger’s work—that of Geist or spirit. Regarding this concept as one that is chronologically developed over the course of his works between 1927 and 1953, Derrida probes the shifting role of Geist and changes in Heidegger’s attitude toward it—between avoidance and glorification— and this is done especially in reference to philosophical nationalism and national socialism, in which Heidegger was involved. Moreover, three central themes are undertaken dealing with the question, animals, and technology. It is due to this variance of spirit in Heidegger, coupled with the nature of translation itself, that the meaning of “spirit” must be deconstructed, and given an “analytic of Gemüt” [disposition]. (22)
Derrida begins by questioning that which he has chosen to be the title this work, “Of Spirit”, acknowledging that “spirit” was never a title of any of Heidegger’s philosophical discourses, and hardly ever is there mention of spirit in terms of essence. While commenting how “no one ever speaks of spirit in Heidegger…even the anti-Heideggerrian specialists”, he still asserts that “…people avoid in their turn speaking of spirit in a work which nonetheless lets itself be magnetized, from its first to its last word, by that very thing”. He aims to perform an experiment of language, putting both German and his own native French to a “test of translation” so as to determine any level of interchangeability between Geist (including geistig, geistlich) and de l’Esprit. The objective here is to gain a transparency of meaning across languages, if possible, through translation and via deconstruction. Three initial arguments are given to this end. First, the aim of explicating the “quarrel” between the German language, and that of Rome, Latin, and Greek.(and thus to treat “of spirit”, as denoted by the Franco-Latin de) as well as attempting to describe a certain powerful force given to spirit in the German language particularly; second, Derrida wants to address a thematic element of spirit which is frequently inherent to very tense political atmospheres; lastly he says that if spirit cannot be classified thematically as just now mentioned, it needs another category of definition and is therefore not only “inscribed” in the political arena, but defines the “meaning…as such”. (1-13)
Delving into the question, Derrida says of Geist that “it is perhaps the name Heidegger gives…to this unquestioned possibility of the question”, and he says also that this is what “Heidegger wants to save from any destitution.” For him, Geist is contrary to the “thing” or “thing-ness”—it cannot be reified as with “the thingification of the subject, of the subjectivity of Descartes”; this must be partitioned in order to save the analytic of Dasein. Spirit, and similar words, is thus avoided, for they are tied to the Cartesian subjectum. Hence, the Fragen, the question itself and its possibility as such, provides the only “correct point of departure”. While Dasein is that which has “care for its Being”, Derrida says it can be indifferent by virtue of the fact that its being indifferent allows for the possibility of its interesting itself in the question of its own being—“[Dasein’s] indifference in this case is a modalization of its non-indifference.” He further elaborates on three types of indifference: the vorhandene being, such as an inanimate object; secondly, indifference as a “positive phenomenon of Dasein”; and lastly, that of the lack of urgency to ask the questions of Being, present before and since Descartes (to include Hegel), which allows for a “vulgar concept of time.” Desiring to escape such a paradigm, Heidegger avoids using the term “spirit” (much in the fashion of a Husserlian epoche, in a sense) by placing it in quotation marks; but in so doing, Derrida remarks that this is also an “un-avoidance” of the term. In this process, there is a “re-Germanization” of spirit occurring as the term comes to be appropriated again in relation to space and time. He avoids the traditional notion of spirit, for as Derrida explains, “it is by virtue of this ‘spirituality’ that Dasein is a being of space, and Heidegger even underlines it, only by virtue of such a spirituality.” As for time, Heidegger distinguishes his conception as different from that “vulgar” view of Hegel (since Hegel’s view of spirit continues in the path of the Cartesian cogito)—spirit is not external to time, it “exists as originary temporalization of temporality.” Furthermore, spirit does not “fall” into time, but from time to time, and hence, from spirit to spirit, thus into itself; in a related note Derrida says that, regardless of the presence of quotation marks or not, “spirit is not other than time”. (14-30)
In 1933 Martin Heidegger became rectorate of the German university in Freiburg, and spirit, free from quotation marks, returns to the fore anew as its own “double”, its own Geist, and “ghost”. In his Rectorship Address the face of spirit is transformed, in a “self-affirmation” of the German university and the “destiny” of the German people. In the address Heidegger defines spirit in terms of four categories: questioning (Fragen), and the responsibility that comes with it; the world; earth-and-blood; and resolution which gives its possibility of the opening to the authenticity of Dasein. In the address, spirit is first and foremost placed high on a pedestal. It is tied with history, “historicity”, in such a way that according to Derrida, their “union…makes of the Fragen the very assignment of spirit.” Here, the possibility of the Fragen is how one should interpret the “spirit of spiritual conduction”—spirit is then a “leap” to a questioning, the question—and this leap can only take place in a world which is necessarily spiritual. In fact, Heidegger says, “Spirituality is the name of that without which there is no world.” (51) Regarding this world of spirit, Derrida next continues to explain Dasein in relation to this spiritual having-of-a-world. The animal, though not Dasein, is described as having and not having a world. For instance, it has access to some tools, but not to art, or craftsmanship—thus, it is incapable of techné. It is not a “closed” entity such as being inanimate, rather the “animal is closed to the very o p e n ing of the entity” and has no access to faculties of meaningfully differentiating entities as such. This middle position of animality in regard to Dasein is described by Derrida as a difficulty present throughout Heidegger’s work which is “fundamentally teleological and traditional, not to say dialectical” (31-59)
As for the motivation from which Heidegger’s shifting expression of spirit gains direction, this is grounded in his desire to address a “destitution of spirit” which Heidegger views as a moving toward spirit, “from within it.” This again relates back to the movement of away from Cartesian preconceptions, but particularly Heidegger is concerned with spiritual “resignation” that he says is the cause of a misinterpretation of the meaning of spirit and thus also, of spirit itself. He focuses on four forms of this: that alongside understanding and mass-distribution (a debasement through over-rationalization of spirit); instrumentalization or “falsification” of spirit concerning technology and the precedence of the Fragen; the becoming of culture through resigning the spiritual world to instrumentalization; and finally a political appeal to spirit through cultural propaganda. Additionally, Heidegger sees evil as the “tormenting” of spirit, existing due to the division of Geist among men, and one source for this is the lack of “originary questioning.” Thus, spirit must be “re-awakened”; this task is a correlative aspect of the responsibility Heidegger attaches to a questioning, and for that matter, a questioning that is common to “a people”, and hence a linguistic community. German and Greek are given privilege in the question of Being (which is always has a ground in meaning), based on a spiritual quality made present in thought by their corresponding terminologies; but German ultimately surpasses this joint quality for Heidegger—“it is the only language in which spirit comes to name itself.” (58-72)
Moreover, Geist is “the unconditioned absolute which determines and gathers every entity.” (76) Derrida describes this as “that which gathers or in which what gathers is gathered.” Similarly, Heidegger has said, “In that it is a unity, spirit is das Wehen [breath].” Heidegger uses metaphor to describe spirit—aligning it with breath and respiration, its unity is brought about through love. As Heidegger sees spirit as a continual return to itself, (as Derrida states, “it is never at home”), spirit is characterized by a “nostalgia for its own essence.” Another metaphor employed is that of the likening of spirit to fire. This has bearing on the movement of spirit or soul, the latter being “given” by spirit (and not just lost by spirit upon one’s death). This movement Heidegger interprets conversely to Platonism, in that he sees meaning itself as what gives the soul direction; this occurs through a “listening to language.” (87-88) Geschlect, while nearly above translation and meaning anything from race, nation, stock, or generation, it is a geopolitical gathering of spirit, and it is said to be “fallen”. It is compared to its “following of a stranger” within the physical realm, not as though the soul or spirit were imprisoned but as though on a spiritual journey. Thus Derrida makes use of the term “revenant”, to describe Heidegger’s interpretive outlook of soul and spirit in his evaluation of Trakl’s poetry, for it is constantly returning to itself and its originary essence.
At the close, we are asked again, then, what is Geist? Derrida’s answer: “spirit-in-flames.” To help us understand this, he explains:
It is not a figure, not a metaphor. Heidegger, at least, would contest any rhetoricizing reading. One could attempt to bring the concepts of rhetoric to bear here only after making sure of some proper meaning for one or other of these words, spirit, flame, in such and such a determinate language, in such and such a text, in such and such a sentence. We are far from that and everything comes back to this difficulty. (96)
Indeed, everything does return to this ultimate difficulty, this paradoxical (inter)subjectivity of the metaphor—and this is especially so in regard to Geist, a spirit within its own spirit. We are constantly becoming lost within translation—yet it seems that it is here in the provenance of meaning in which we continually find ourselves. Thus as Derrida states, referring to the responsibility of questioning, “one must indeed sign this theorem over in one’s own language”, for the metaphorical symbolism of language is the medium of any thought, and thus any questioning of any Being. What is Being? How does one come to arrive at the opening of this questioning? The answer resides precisely in the consciousness of the asking, and certainly also the possibility of such an inquirer; but what of the conditions for the possibility of this interrogative experience? For Heidegger, this question (Fragen) is the condition, a conditionality revolving around the “care” of Da-sein, “the being for whom being is in question”; yet this inquiry is inextricably linked with Geist, or “spirit”, for Dasein is always a being-in-the-world, that is, a spiritual world. Geist makes possible such an existential inquiry—it allows for any sort of deconstruction of any meaning. In questioning Being, the complexity and breadth of inquiry is entirely contingent upon the contextual framework within which an individual may perform such an existential inquisition. The answer then, and hence the question, may well be one in the same. Just as Geist is to itself a duplicity, the two-fold question of being can become its own answer, via the materialization of the very inquiry. Certainly this question is solely one’s own, for the ‘individual’ [of] Dasein must affirm this responsibility within the idiom that guides their spiritual path to Truth—this is as it must be, if we are to learn to live within, live as, the Question.
Works Cited
Derrida, Jacques. Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question. Trans. Geoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1987.
William Earle, Phenomenology of Mysticism
Thomas Landes
10/22/08
Phenomenology of Mysticism
Dr. Davis
Contemporary Philosophy
In order to break down a phenomenology of mysticism, the mystical experience is to be seen as being the same experience across all cultures, from ancient Greece to modern Christianity. The mystical experiences which are being considered range from, the alteration of time (making and eternity fit into an hour), a pure white light which is found in darkness (a Tibetan Buddhist concept of ego loss ), or really anything which contradicts reason. Even though these concepts arguably create completely different feelings and serve completely different purposes, it is through Phenomenology that we can reduce these to the essence of what is Absolute reality. Now if they are more or less the same experience then are Mystics just playing around with language to demonstrate a poetic that negates reason? William Earle excerpts an effort to show that it is more than simple word play across cultures but of an experience to demonstrate an individual perception of absolute reality.
William Earle, early on in his method sets out to make his approach to be independent of mystic terms. He first lays bare the essence of mysticism to be “the experience of identity of the soul and God” and he translates it to be “the experience of the identity of myself with Absolute Reality.” By doing this he throws out all questions as to what the soul is, what God is and what the relation between soul and God are in a mystic sense and merely attempts to define what myself, Absolute Reality, and the relation of the two are.
Here we start with an epoche of what myself (also to be considered in the epoche as being the same as I or Ego,) should embody. Myself when used as a reflection toward experience should bracket out anything to do with physical, biological or logical associations if it is to be considered a Mystic experience. To take the I or Ego phenomenologically we should only take it to be of itself, for it is within itself that it experiences the Mystical experience with the Absolute Reality. So in order to get to this non objective formation of a phenomenological myself we are to see it out of any context that objectifies myself such as thinking about, drawing a conclusion about, placing in temporality and spatiality, and we are to see it with the context of I Myself.
Now I feel as though this separating of the myself from the thinking about myself, explains very well the relationship of the mystic experience with the common experience. If it is for the fact that there is a mystic experience that is not perceived from outside of the Ego then the common experience would not be possible, unless the mystic experience could be observed through thinking about myself (or outside of the Ego, as laid down previously). So the terms of the mystics although are irrational (such as an eternity in a minute, pure white light in darkness, etc…) this irrationality is the only way to explain what it is that is experienced, for I myself is experienced only during the mystical experience.
In the process of defining what myself is, William Earle determines its existence in relation with temporality and spatiality. The example of the I myself in a room, and even though the I myself perceives itself in a spatial room does not mean that the I is in itself is spatial. So for the simple fact that the I exists in a “body” which takes up mass, does not mean that the I is in fact spatial (I feel this is a good example of what the meaning of soul is to be since in fact I myself is the soul from our original definition of the essence of mysticism. Soul, at least in the Christian sense of the word is what is carried beyond after the body has failed, giving us yet another separation between thinking about myself and I myself.) The question of the I myself and its relation with temporality, comes into definition through what William Earle describes as the “flux and flow of the world.” The flux would be that each moment is different from the next which is different from the previous even though the I myself did not necessarily move/change because of the ability for it to remember, and predict. So the Ego exists in temporality and not spatiality (this relation with time will later be explain how a mystics ability to alter time is a possibility through the relationship with absolute reality).
Absolute reality in a much easier light than Myself, because we only have two terms which are of themselves not at a need to be bracketed out in a Husserl fashion as extensively. William Earle explains it as what is infinite cannot be finite, what is true cannot be false and so what is in reality cannot be outside of reality, and vise versa. This is explained in what William Earle explains as the ontological argument of all contributions of this argument summarized as “I can conceive of an absolutely perfect Being; since existence is a perfection, such a Being must necessarily exist as I conceive it. That is, it is not a mere hypothesis that God exists, or suggestion that needs additional support.” If we agree that there is an absolute reality, which is what holds all reality together and gives us the ability to communicate, interact, rationalize, etc…, then there is by necessity an absolute reality. The list of what exists in reality is infinite whether it is possible or not, impossibilities are still present in reality. This infinite definition of Absolute Reality, is what defines itself with in what the mystics call God but only transcendental to absolute reality.
What makes the Mystic experience possible is this defining of something philosophically known as being finite, such as I myself and making it infinite, such as the soul. The way in which the Mystical experience takes the finitude of the single absolute reality and turning it into a transcendental infinitude known as God. These together make the Mystical experience differ from the common experience for the mere fact that it is impossible to have the concept of soul and God separate, as phenomenologically defined.
I think that there is more to the Mystical experience than a mere experience that isn’t the common one, as William Earle laid forth, and to a certain extent is different within most religions. The goals behind such experiences may be the same whether they be the ego loss for a Tibetan causing a euphoric white light and the Goal for a Christian to be in touch with God, both want to achieve a comfort but the experience in itself is not the same. If the average man were to seek ego loss he would have an experience of much agony in the process, but if he were to strive to find his relation with the Christian God he would experience much despair. What William Earle defines as the essence may be the same for all Mystic experience, but differ greatly in the process at which the Mystic experiences.
Phenomenology of Mysticism, William Earle, p. 97
Experience of the sacred readings in the phenomenology of religion
Hanover, N.H. : University Press of New England, c1992
x, 294 p. ; 23 cm
10/22/08
Phenomenology of Mysticism
Dr. Davis
Contemporary Philosophy
In order to break down a phenomenology of mysticism, the mystical experience is to be seen as being the same experience across all cultures, from ancient Greece to modern Christianity. The mystical experiences which are being considered range from, the alteration of time (making and eternity fit into an hour), a pure white light which is found in darkness (a Tibetan Buddhist concept of ego loss ), or really anything which contradicts reason. Even though these concepts arguably create completely different feelings and serve completely different purposes, it is through Phenomenology that we can reduce these to the essence of what is Absolute reality. Now if they are more or less the same experience then are Mystics just playing around with language to demonstrate a poetic that negates reason? William Earle excerpts an effort to show that it is more than simple word play across cultures but of an experience to demonstrate an individual perception of absolute reality.
William Earle, early on in his method sets out to make his approach to be independent of mystic terms. He first lays bare the essence of mysticism to be “the experience of identity of the soul and God” and he translates it to be “the experience of the identity of myself with Absolute Reality.” By doing this he throws out all questions as to what the soul is, what God is and what the relation between soul and God are in a mystic sense and merely attempts to define what myself, Absolute Reality, and the relation of the two are.
Here we start with an epoche of what myself (also to be considered in the epoche as being the same as I or Ego,) should embody. Myself when used as a reflection toward experience should bracket out anything to do with physical, biological or logical associations if it is to be considered a Mystic experience. To take the I or Ego phenomenologically we should only take it to be of itself, for it is within itself that it experiences the Mystical experience with the Absolute Reality. So in order to get to this non objective formation of a phenomenological myself we are to see it out of any context that objectifies myself such as thinking about, drawing a conclusion about, placing in temporality and spatiality, and we are to see it with the context of I Myself.
Now I feel as though this separating of the myself from the thinking about myself, explains very well the relationship of the mystic experience with the common experience. If it is for the fact that there is a mystic experience that is not perceived from outside of the Ego then the common experience would not be possible, unless the mystic experience could be observed through thinking about myself (or outside of the Ego, as laid down previously). So the terms of the mystics although are irrational (such as an eternity in a minute, pure white light in darkness, etc…) this irrationality is the only way to explain what it is that is experienced, for I myself is experienced only during the mystical experience.
In the process of defining what myself is, William Earle determines its existence in relation with temporality and spatiality. The example of the I myself in a room, and even though the I myself perceives itself in a spatial room does not mean that the I is in itself is spatial. So for the simple fact that the I exists in a “body” which takes up mass, does not mean that the I is in fact spatial (I feel this is a good example of what the meaning of soul is to be since in fact I myself is the soul from our original definition of the essence of mysticism. Soul, at least in the Christian sense of the word is what is carried beyond after the body has failed, giving us yet another separation between thinking about myself and I myself.) The question of the I myself and its relation with temporality, comes into definition through what William Earle describes as the “flux and flow of the world.” The flux would be that each moment is different from the next which is different from the previous even though the I myself did not necessarily move/change because of the ability for it to remember, and predict. So the Ego exists in temporality and not spatiality (this relation with time will later be explain how a mystics ability to alter time is a possibility through the relationship with absolute reality).
Absolute reality in a much easier light than Myself, because we only have two terms which are of themselves not at a need to be bracketed out in a Husserl fashion as extensively. William Earle explains it as what is infinite cannot be finite, what is true cannot be false and so what is in reality cannot be outside of reality, and vise versa. This is explained in what William Earle explains as the ontological argument of all contributions of this argument summarized as “I can conceive of an absolutely perfect Being; since existence is a perfection, such a Being must necessarily exist as I conceive it. That is, it is not a mere hypothesis that God exists, or suggestion that needs additional support.” If we agree that there is an absolute reality, which is what holds all reality together and gives us the ability to communicate, interact, rationalize, etc…, then there is by necessity an absolute reality. The list of what exists in reality is infinite whether it is possible or not, impossibilities are still present in reality. This infinite definition of Absolute Reality, is what defines itself with in what the mystics call God but only transcendental to absolute reality.
What makes the Mystic experience possible is this defining of something philosophically known as being finite, such as I myself and making it infinite, such as the soul. The way in which the Mystical experience takes the finitude of the single absolute reality and turning it into a transcendental infinitude known as God. These together make the Mystical experience differ from the common experience for the mere fact that it is impossible to have the concept of soul and God separate, as phenomenologically defined.
I think that there is more to the Mystical experience than a mere experience that isn’t the common one, as William Earle laid forth, and to a certain extent is different within most religions. The goals behind such experiences may be the same whether they be the ego loss for a Tibetan causing a euphoric white light and the Goal for a Christian to be in touch with God, both want to achieve a comfort but the experience in itself is not the same. If the average man were to seek ego loss he would have an experience of much agony in the process, but if he were to strive to find his relation with the Christian God he would experience much despair. What William Earle defines as the essence may be the same for all Mystic experience, but differ greatly in the process at which the Mystic experiences.
Phenomenology of Mysticism, William Earle, p. 97
Experience of the sacred readings in the phenomenology of religion
Hanover, N.H. : University Press of New England, c1992
x, 294 p. ; 23 cm
Fanon and the Crisis of European Man
Katie O’Donnell
PHIL 352 22 October 2008
Philosophical Report II
Gordon, Lewis R. Fanon and the Crisis of European Man: An Essay on Philosophy and the
Human Sciences. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Frantz Fanon, a younger contemporary of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, was not, strictly speaking, a phenomenologist. He was a philosopher and a psychiatrist, an ardent supporter and participant in the struggle for Algerian independence, and a passionate and controversial critic of the degradation of humanity caused by colonialism. And, being born on the French-colonized island of Martinique, he shared not only an era but, in name at least, a nationality with the aforementioned philosophers, though the racial designator “black” qualified Fanon’s status/existence as a Frenchman. In his essay Fanon and the Crisis of European Man Lewis Gordon engages Fanon and postcolonial discourse to examine what it means to be black in a world that remains constructed on and with the logic of European/white superiority. Gordon uses Fanon’s work to advance postcolonial studies into the realm of postcolonial existential-phenomenology, contending primarily with Husserl and Sartre and arguing convincingly for the necessity of a phenomenological account of colonialism.
Gordon begins his essay with a short section entitled “Fanon as Critique of European Man,” designed to present Fanon’s humanism in a phenomenological light and provide introduction to the crisis of European Man. Gordon writes that “…France is not Fanon’s Other; he is France’s Other. Like the African American, Fanon finds himself inextricably linked to a society that not only rejects him, but also attempts to deny his existence as a legitimate point of view…” (6). The colonial attitude that Fanon fights against is one that equates European Culture with culture in general and the White Man with humanity in general. The particular is universalized, structuring reality in such a way as to deny the humanity of each individual who does not fit the description required, rendering these individuals essentially invisible within a structure of antiblack racism. Both Fanon and Gordon assert that to reduce humanity in this fashion is to kill it. While this claim finds a considerable amount of support around the world, Gordon argues that we still live within the structure of antiblack racism; it is bad faith institutionalized, and engenders the crisis of European man. Gordon writes: “…the white man looks at the black man and wonders when it will all end, but the white man knows deep down that a just future is one in which he himself no longer exists in virtue of his ceasing to function as the End, or less ambiguously, the telos of Man” (12). Both concepts, “black man” and “white man”, are co-constructed, and the complete eradication of one implies the complete eradication of the other. Gordon argues that European man continues to act out of bad faith as he flees from true responsibility and choice into the arms of the nostalgic pseudo-responsibility invoked by the “white man’s burden.”
Gordon goes on to argue that the two terms comprising “postcolonial phenomenology” are, in a sense, equivalent to one another as each demands a radically critical stance be taken toward colonizing influences. Husserl famously asserted the phenomenological attitude’s need to bracket the natural attitude in order to reflect upon it and its intentionalities. Gordon argues that a similar ontological suspension is required when dealing with the logic of colonization. He writes, “Fanon rejects traditional ontological dimensions of human beings in favor of existential ones” (10). This is because his description as a “black man” within his society did not resonate with who Fanon was, with his ontological status; rather, it involved who he was interpreted to be. Gordon, in his effort to critique ontology, introduces Sartre who then is used to discuss different modes of human embodiment. Three, specifically: the human being as “the perspective from a standpoint in the world; the perspective seen from other standpoints in the world; and the…perspective that is aware of itself being seen from other standpoints in the world” (19). There is, then, a social dimension necessary to embodiment, which Gordon argues is essential to the “recognition of human being” (21) and conversely allows for the study of institutional bad faith. Evasion of responsibility is not just an individual refusal to choose; analyzing the phenomenon of racism shows it to be a social refusal. The refusal to choose that characterizes the crisis of European Man results not only in a distortion of historical understanding, but the denial of History (as in the history of humanity) to those men and women whose humanity is rendered invisible. Yet, Gordon writes, “Every black person faces history—his or her story—every day as a situation, as a choice, of how to stand in relation to oppression, of whether to live as a being subsumed by oppression or to live as active resistance towards liberation, or to live as mere indifference. This conception of history is rooted in daily life” (29). The recognition of one’s everyday oppression, of the structural manner of their oppression Liberation from oppression has its source in the everyday existences of the oppressed. Gordon defines oppression in this context as extraordinary conditions of everyday life being placed on individuals in such a way as to make them appear ordinary, even natural.
Gordon argues that, “…we find the uniqueness of our circumstances subject to a peculiar sense of anonymity—it takes on a form that may not be uniquely our own, although there is a very real sense in which it is our own by virtue of the fact that we are the ones who are living it at the time of consideration” (43). Similar considerations prompted WEB Du Bois to ask not what it feels like to be a problem, but what it means to be a problem, as Gordon points out in other works. What modes of existence, what constructed institutions allow for the anonymity of a significant portion of humanity? How is everyday existence informed and itself constructed by the logics of colonialism and racism? Gordon continues: “Racism renders the individual anonymous even to himself. The very standpoint of consciousness, embodiment itself, is saturated with a strangeness that either locks the individual into the mechanism of things or sends him away and transforms him into an observer hovering over that very thing” (58). He makes a distinction between authentic embodiment and alienated embodiment, arguing that, “…to be seen in a racist way is an ironic way of not being seen through being seen.” (58). According to Gordon, racism is not sustained by a dialect between Self and Other, because this relationship demands the status of a relationship between human beings, a status which black people are not afforded within the structure of antiblack racism. So the struggle for liberation under oppression becomes the struggle to be epistemologically acknowledged as Other. Gordon does not conclude his discussion without addressing the most controversial element of Fanon’s own work, namely, his reliance on violence as a component of true liberation. Gordon uses the concept of tragedy to characterize and expand on Fanon’s ideas. Tragedy as conceived by the Greeks involved the powerful taking responsibility for their actions through the recognition of duty. Gordon writes that in a racist society “…the burden of bearing the community’s evils is placed upon the powerless instead of the powerful. In effect, the tragic stage has been turned upside down. Thus, the revolutionary possibility of tragedy is that its object of degradation, if you will, is always the powerful. But the irony of tragedy is that it promises a form of restoration that can never truly be ‘as things were before.’ Tragedy is, fundamentally, in Sartrean language, progressive-regressive” (75). Violence to others or to oneself often plays a central role in tragedy. Nevertheless, the political question that ultimately arises out of Gordon’s examination of racism and the crisis of European Man is how we can conceive and practice a political reality that is not structured on the degradation of humanity. Though the logistics of this structure remain unclear, Gordon does throughout his text lay out three general points/issues that require implementation in the restructuring of everyday life. The first is an articulation of a philosophical anthropology that promotes humanizing sociopolitical change. Secondly, we must realign the concept of human flourishing with an understanding of humanity that takes all human being into account in order to build political institutions that promote humanity. And thirdly the inquiries into humanity and human flourishing must be marked by a radical degree of self-reflection in order to avoid epistemological colonization and the fleeing from responsibility that characterizes bad faith. Overall, Fanon and the Crisis of European Man is a worthwhile, interesting read, and it is certainly both an important and necessary contribution to postcolonial and phenomenological discourses.
PHIL 352 22 October 2008
Philosophical Report II
Gordon, Lewis R. Fanon and the Crisis of European Man: An Essay on Philosophy and the
Human Sciences. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Frantz Fanon, a younger contemporary of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, was not, strictly speaking, a phenomenologist. He was a philosopher and a psychiatrist, an ardent supporter and participant in the struggle for Algerian independence, and a passionate and controversial critic of the degradation of humanity caused by colonialism. And, being born on the French-colonized island of Martinique, he shared not only an era but, in name at least, a nationality with the aforementioned philosophers, though the racial designator “black” qualified Fanon’s status/existence as a Frenchman. In his essay Fanon and the Crisis of European Man Lewis Gordon engages Fanon and postcolonial discourse to examine what it means to be black in a world that remains constructed on and with the logic of European/white superiority. Gordon uses Fanon’s work to advance postcolonial studies into the realm of postcolonial existential-phenomenology, contending primarily with Husserl and Sartre and arguing convincingly for the necessity of a phenomenological account of colonialism.
Gordon begins his essay with a short section entitled “Fanon as Critique of European Man,” designed to present Fanon’s humanism in a phenomenological light and provide introduction to the crisis of European Man. Gordon writes that “…France is not Fanon’s Other; he is France’s Other. Like the African American, Fanon finds himself inextricably linked to a society that not only rejects him, but also attempts to deny his existence as a legitimate point of view…” (6). The colonial attitude that Fanon fights against is one that equates European Culture with culture in general and the White Man with humanity in general. The particular is universalized, structuring reality in such a way as to deny the humanity of each individual who does not fit the description required, rendering these individuals essentially invisible within a structure of antiblack racism. Both Fanon and Gordon assert that to reduce humanity in this fashion is to kill it. While this claim finds a considerable amount of support around the world, Gordon argues that we still live within the structure of antiblack racism; it is bad faith institutionalized, and engenders the crisis of European man. Gordon writes: “…the white man looks at the black man and wonders when it will all end, but the white man knows deep down that a just future is one in which he himself no longer exists in virtue of his ceasing to function as the End, or less ambiguously, the telos of Man” (12). Both concepts, “black man” and “white man”, are co-constructed, and the complete eradication of one implies the complete eradication of the other. Gordon argues that European man continues to act out of bad faith as he flees from true responsibility and choice into the arms of the nostalgic pseudo-responsibility invoked by the “white man’s burden.”
Gordon goes on to argue that the two terms comprising “postcolonial phenomenology” are, in a sense, equivalent to one another as each demands a radically critical stance be taken toward colonizing influences. Husserl famously asserted the phenomenological attitude’s need to bracket the natural attitude in order to reflect upon it and its intentionalities. Gordon argues that a similar ontological suspension is required when dealing with the logic of colonization. He writes, “Fanon rejects traditional ontological dimensions of human beings in favor of existential ones” (10). This is because his description as a “black man” within his society did not resonate with who Fanon was, with his ontological status; rather, it involved who he was interpreted to be. Gordon, in his effort to critique ontology, introduces Sartre who then is used to discuss different modes of human embodiment. Three, specifically: the human being as “the perspective from a standpoint in the world; the perspective seen from other standpoints in the world; and the…perspective that is aware of itself being seen from other standpoints in the world” (19). There is, then, a social dimension necessary to embodiment, which Gordon argues is essential to the “recognition of human being” (21) and conversely allows for the study of institutional bad faith. Evasion of responsibility is not just an individual refusal to choose; analyzing the phenomenon of racism shows it to be a social refusal. The refusal to choose that characterizes the crisis of European Man results not only in a distortion of historical understanding, but the denial of History (as in the history of humanity) to those men and women whose humanity is rendered invisible. Yet, Gordon writes, “Every black person faces history—his or her story—every day as a situation, as a choice, of how to stand in relation to oppression, of whether to live as a being subsumed by oppression or to live as active resistance towards liberation, or to live as mere indifference. This conception of history is rooted in daily life” (29). The recognition of one’s everyday oppression, of the structural manner of their oppression Liberation from oppression has its source in the everyday existences of the oppressed. Gordon defines oppression in this context as extraordinary conditions of everyday life being placed on individuals in such a way as to make them appear ordinary, even natural.
Gordon argues that, “…we find the uniqueness of our circumstances subject to a peculiar sense of anonymity—it takes on a form that may not be uniquely our own, although there is a very real sense in which it is our own by virtue of the fact that we are the ones who are living it at the time of consideration” (43). Similar considerations prompted WEB Du Bois to ask not what it feels like to be a problem, but what it means to be a problem, as Gordon points out in other works. What modes of existence, what constructed institutions allow for the anonymity of a significant portion of humanity? How is everyday existence informed and itself constructed by the logics of colonialism and racism? Gordon continues: “Racism renders the individual anonymous even to himself. The very standpoint of consciousness, embodiment itself, is saturated with a strangeness that either locks the individual into the mechanism of things or sends him away and transforms him into an observer hovering over that very thing” (58). He makes a distinction between authentic embodiment and alienated embodiment, arguing that, “…to be seen in a racist way is an ironic way of not being seen through being seen.” (58). According to Gordon, racism is not sustained by a dialect between Self and Other, because this relationship demands the status of a relationship between human beings, a status which black people are not afforded within the structure of antiblack racism. So the struggle for liberation under oppression becomes the struggle to be epistemologically acknowledged as Other. Gordon does not conclude his discussion without addressing the most controversial element of Fanon’s own work, namely, his reliance on violence as a component of true liberation. Gordon uses the concept of tragedy to characterize and expand on Fanon’s ideas. Tragedy as conceived by the Greeks involved the powerful taking responsibility for their actions through the recognition of duty. Gordon writes that in a racist society “…the burden of bearing the community’s evils is placed upon the powerless instead of the powerful. In effect, the tragic stage has been turned upside down. Thus, the revolutionary possibility of tragedy is that its object of degradation, if you will, is always the powerful. But the irony of tragedy is that it promises a form of restoration that can never truly be ‘as things were before.’ Tragedy is, fundamentally, in Sartrean language, progressive-regressive” (75). Violence to others or to oneself often plays a central role in tragedy. Nevertheless, the political question that ultimately arises out of Gordon’s examination of racism and the crisis of European Man is how we can conceive and practice a political reality that is not structured on the degradation of humanity. Though the logistics of this structure remain unclear, Gordon does throughout his text lay out three general points/issues that require implementation in the restructuring of everyday life. The first is an articulation of a philosophical anthropology that promotes humanizing sociopolitical change. Secondly, we must realign the concept of human flourishing with an understanding of humanity that takes all human being into account in order to build political institutions that promote humanity. And thirdly the inquiries into humanity and human flourishing must be marked by a radical degree of self-reflection in order to avoid epistemological colonization and the fleeing from responsibility that characterizes bad faith. Overall, Fanon and the Crisis of European Man is a worthwhile, interesting read, and it is certainly both an important and necessary contribution to postcolonial and phenomenological discourses.
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