So I’ve been reading my Heidegger stuff and working on my paper when I was suddenly like, “Oh my goodness this doesn’t make a lick of sense!” (Okay, maybe not suddenly, but you get the idea.) I felt like the Tootsie Pop boy I drew in my cartoon. I couldn’t figure out much of what Heidegger was saying and was frustrated, but then I had a thought. What if that was how Herr Heidegger wanted his listeners to respond? I don’t mean he wanted us to get upset and have our brains overload, but he simply sough to make us think. Heidegger is standing in a room full of students, or colleagues, or whatever and he tosses an infinite question “Why are there essents rather than nothing” in the midst of them. The effect was probably the same as it was in our class-- it got our minds turning. Heidegger twists and turns and gets us all tangled up trying to discover meaning in his philosophy and whatnot, but really he has fulfilled the very definition he gave to philosophy. It is not in the nature of philosophy to give answers which would simplify and therefore lose the meaning. It is the nature of philosophy to question and make things much more difficult. Mission accomplished Herr Heidegger.
P.S.: i commented on Mallory Searcy's post
Hmm. I really like that take on it. It's a conundrum he has created to simulate a whirlpool from which we cannot escape. Maybe he has done it in hopes that we will give up philosophy and convert to poets. Maybe...
ReplyDeleteIt seems like it would be against the rules to be reminded of romanticism from reading Heidegger, but romanticism is exactly what came to mind when I read your post. I definitely agree with you said though. I think there is a good possibility that Heidegger might have never intended his writing to have a solution to the question he deals with. But that possibility is exactly what made me think of romanticism. Like negative capability, in which we are able to thrive in ambiguity and experience life and meaning at a much deeper level, Heidegger maintains that same level of ambiguity in his writing. By not actually solving the problem, he allows the reader to experience it and wrestle with it as opposed to simply accepting an absolute answer. At least that's what I'm gonna tell myself cause I'm definitely in the same boat as you.
ReplyDeleteSam, in the first reading we did on Heidegger, he did say something that very much resembled negative capability. He stated, "But to know means: to be able to stand in the truth. Truth is the manifestness of the essent. To know is accordingly the ability to stand in the manifestness of the essent, to endure it. Merely to have information, however abundant is not to know."
ReplyDeleteIn other words, true knowledge (truth) comes from the ability to endure the fullness of the essent, even though we may not fully understand it.... same idea as negative capability.
And, Will, reverting back to poetry might not be that bad. Take Heidegger's "What are Poet's For?" for example. He spends 40 or so pages intensely analyzing and describing a theory that was founded in and can fully be summed up by a few short little poems. On the other hand, however, the lengthy, sometimes mind-boggling philosophical discussion is, I guess more of a gadfly at times than the emotions that the poem evokes...
I think MH is difficult to read because he's trying to express new thoughts, so it's impossible, or a mistake, to equate them to something you already know. For example, when MH asks "Why is there something rather than nothing?", he's going to elaborate on it in a way precludes the traditional magic wand answers we're familiar with - e.g., "Because Jehovah/God/Allah created it" - don't work in MH's scheme of things.
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