Heidegger

[Paul Mackin]

On Mon, 26 Jun 2000 Muchasmasgracias at cs.com wrote:

>  mjoking at yahoo.com writes:
> 
> << He's very important
>  > philosopher  >>
> 
> 
> Well, why are philosophers so important anyways?  I mean other than for 
> cocktail party chatter...
> 


Do philosophers think they themselves are terribly important? Say as
compared to engineers. What would Wittgenstien say? Or Heideggar?
Which kind of thinking is more important--highly abstract, or more down to
earth practical. Seems like highly abstract gets undue respect, thus the
philosophy talk at cocktail parties. Wasn't it a Heideggarian aim to
free philosophy from traditional metaphysics, which sounds much like
freeing philosophy from philosophy, a highly abstract operation no doubt
itself.

Seems to me a philosopher would be more interesting than important.

No, that's not right either.

Guess my answer is, don't know.

			P