<<
As to what I take to be the Heideggerian Lie, I don't at all necessarily
hold it against him. Philosophers never lie innocently, in other words. As a
lie, it is itself beyond good and evil! The "lie" here I take to be _not_
that being is not fundamentally contingent, but rather the assertion of the
logical (and tautological) self-contingency of being as reforming the
incontingent as such, as ontology, and thus as ground for all his further
assertions. An Indian rope trick, in other words. To say that Heidegger is
lying here is to say that his sleight-of-hand is not innocent here, that he
is being quite purposively deceptive. Now, I don't happen to object to the
Heideggerian Lie here at all! It is the mask behind which he hides. Every
philosopher wears his mask.
I understand that this may all be perfect blather, and next day _I_ may
consider it as so, but today, anyway, it is the thought that occurs to me.
Best,
Tom Fool >>
Tom,
concerning your criticism of Heidegger and his, as you presume, 'robe trick'
I'm not sure about that and feel myself moved to play the guardian angel.
What I doubt is your connecting being - incontingence in reference to
Heidegger. What Heidegger tried, to my mind, is asking for the true meaning
of the sense of being and what that is 'being''. In his conviction there
has been a misunderstanding and wrong questioning since centuries and
therefore he, in my opinion, criticized the widly teached and none doubted
connection being-incontingence you say he would assume. He tried to open the
whole question anew by taking another way _not_ exactly knowing how the end
would look like or if this was not the wrong way and method at all. However,
he really made a difference between the things which are and the being itself
he querried. This difference was exactly his _problem_ he tried to solve,
and he thought the answers of tradition (being-incontingence) won't do.
Heidegger's ontology is, for this reason, not to be confused with the aged
answers of metaphysics. (To get something of my feeling it is only neccessary
to read the first pages of 'Being and Time').
Later on you sent another mail and you wrote:
> Still, there is a genuinely interesting philosophical problem .... That is
that if being is contingent, it can't be contingent on anything other than
being, in that what being was contingent on would itself then be being!
Therefore being can only be contingent on itself, or "self-contingent," as I
put it. Now I happen to relate this state of self-contingency to the notion
of Peircean synechism (truth as continuity) which I think is entirely
consistent with Nitzschean perspectivism, for instance. Truth is relational,
in other words...<
Puh! (difficult, not a trial to prove God's existence, but the contingency of
being and relativism of truth). My first impression, some questions:
1. Do you distinguish between the things which are and the 'being' -> not to
my impression, but perhaps not neccessary at all?
2. Do you think it correct to make the trial of proving relativism of truth?
Do you think it neccessary and why so?
3. And by proving, do you think you are in a line with Nietzsche?
4. And, last but not least, if I myself make the trial to enter your
argumentation (which I have not done yet), will I than be in a line with
Nietzsche to your opinion?
-Litok
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