At 16:04 22-8-02 +0000, you wrote: > >Dear Rene, > >Thank you for your wonderful translation. This text brings to light many=20 >interesting points with respect to the Heidegger and Juenger affinity. It= =20 >is, indeed, worthwhile to mention the contention between Juenger and=20 >Heidegger about language. In fact, it was exactly this contention that=20 >divided the two about the prospects of handling planetary nihilism as the= =20 >technological will-to-power. > >Heidegger's "On the Way to Language" and "The Question Concerning Being"=20 >responds to Juenger's assessment. Heidegger had accused Juenger of= subsiding=20 >to Nietzschean dynamics, that is, of falling prey to the calculational=20 >schema of language. While I cannot cite the quote exactly, I do remember=20 >Heidegger mentioning it within OA (I mention this in my thesis, too).=20 >Juenger responded with his much cited magical realism argument, and=20 >incidentally, encounters the crux of your translation. In other words the= =20 >two thinkers, though upon surface appear to disagree about whether or not= =20 >humanity may cross the line (Think of Juenger's essay "Uber die Linie") of= =20 >nihilism it is my argument that they in fact both have correctly identified= =20 >the problem of technological machination and the planetary tendency of=20 >technologized will-to-power as residing in the essence of scientific=20 >practices. Juenger's Anarch was, in prototype, the design to encounter= these=20 >practices and organically unite the power of technology with the ability to= =20 >control and dominate, rather than being dominated by it. Conversely,=20 >Heidegger's Dasein prototype is much more passive. I think such is evident= =20 >through "the Kehre" and the later writings on Holderlin as well as "The=20 >Origin of the Work of Art". Hello Leon, Anarch and Dasein are incomparable, although they must have a lot to do with each other. Both notions seem to imply that one must BE Anarch, or BE the Da, as= Heidegger says, and not an outsider, that talks ABOUT them. Recently I was reading Heidegger saying that this practice of comparing (everything with everything) is going to be in need of a thorough revision. As are our fundamental notions of history, btw and not wholly unrelated. >Nevertheless, your letter also brings to mind my later days of Heidegger=20 >studies at the University studying under the well known North American=20 >Heidegger scholar Dr. Martin Weatherston (University of Toronto). Fond=20 >memories of sitting in a much crowded classroom discussing "Sein und Zeit"= =20 >with the other students. There were so many interested in fact that some= had=20 >to sit on the floor. Much like Heidegger's famed old lectures held early in= =20 >the morning (purposefully) where there would be as many as 60 or 70= students=20 >in one small classroom, and others hailing him as he entered. Surely a cult= =20 >like status surrounds possibly the greatest philosopher of the twentieth=20 >century and one feels engaged and enlightened within the rigorous study=20 >needed to comprehend his texts, yet suddenly lost momentarily after the=20 >engagement has ended. I remember walking the University path at the end of= =20 >the day with my purple notebook knowing these studies would effect me for= =20 >the rest of my life. The feeling was, and still is, quite literally=20 >indescribable and beyond language itself. Incidentally, Heidegger argues=20 >this is the most authentic form of thinking. That is, upon entering the=20 >clearing, "Lichtung", or lighting-place, one is sheltered by Being and=20 >encounters its true essence. There are many winding and difficult paths=20 >through the forest leading there, yet once there true philosophical= thinking=20 >begins because everything falls into question including the most important= =20 >question of Being. > >I think Heidegger's prognosis was left invisible I only know of one: only a god can save us. And J=FCnger: the gods will come back in the 21st century.=20 because it is up to us to=20 >carry out his program. In some ways Juenger does this, but also as well,=20 >leaves the carrying out up to us existentially. That is why I think those= =20 >two thinkers, as well as Nietzsche, carry a latent blueprint much needed= for=20 >today's technological civilization. Yes, Leon, although we are, according to both, in existential regard rather the carried-along than the carrying out, and our being-in-the-world a being in a world, that is no longer what it was, and not yet what it will be, in a situation therefore, Nietzsche attributed to the Germans of the late19th century: Nietzsche: the Germans still are nothing, but they can become something; but he also warned, that terrible possibilities too were included. Now the Americans are in the lead. Let's see, how they are going to cope with Semites, the reign of evil, and possible contamination (in the sense of Derrida, not anthrax). regards, Rene ----------------------------------- drs. Rene de Bakker Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam Afdeling Catalogisering=20 tel. 020-5252368 =20
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