V--2nd, Existentialist Sheriff; Profane reading, Pig Bodine recommended, p. 302 HP Classics edition

[Michael Bailey]

brief unlearn-ed anecdote on Heidegger, and an 8-point ramble just
because it's such a pretty afternoon and I got a bicycle ride in:

my friend Jerry was the one who gave me Infinite Jest to read; we went
bike riding in Kansas a bunch of times and I helped him move his stuff
in with our other buddy Scott...

so amongst his books was an English translation of a Heidegger book,
_Being and Time_ and he goes, "yeah, that one'll kill you..."

dangerous philosophy?

recently saw Leaves of Grass, with that Edward Norton in it.  What is
it with all these pot movies where there's a bunch of violence?

Anyway, the clean-cut Edward Norton character is this philosophy
professor, and the scruffy Edward Norton character is this pot
dealer...they are twins...
(imdb sez he agreed to half his usual pay, but if he was playing 2
parts, wouldn't that mean he got paid that much twice?  real
headscratcher there)

a-and Scruffy tells the philosopher-twin that he's read every paper
the latter's written, had to look up a lot of words, and "not in
Merriam-Webster, either, I had to use the fuckin' OED"

then of course he heaps contempt on the whole business of philosophy
and gets his brother to toke up -

which is kind of what I want to do when confronted with something like this:
http://www07.homepage.villanova.edu/paul.livingston/martin_heidegger%20-%20letter%20on%20humanism.htm

but it's actually kind of interesting, especially when you consider
that this was what MH came out with after intense soul-searching and,
I think, a steadfast refusal to apologize for cavorting with the
NSDAP...so I tried to read it...

it looks like a meaty explanation of Heidegger's "Letter on Humanism"
(so - I'm not in *mortal* danger anyway, it not being _Being and
Time_)

a) this was written after Heidegger took his lumps for being all too
ready to embrace Hitlerism

b) and one of his purposes was to distinguish his stance from Sartre's

c) It says in the article that Sartre claims to be defending the
"cogito" premise

d) Heidegger - if I've plucked the right paragraph - thinks this about that:
"When we think of man as subject, we think of his relation to beings
as the relationship of subject to object.  The subject is set off
against the object, and it becomes man’s goal to think of ever-new
plans for the creation, manipulation, and control of material objects.
 Heidegger wants us to see our way to a new thinking of man’s being,
according to which he is not in this kind of relationship to other
beings.  But this is only possible insofar as man is thought of, and
thinks of himself, in his fundamental relationship to Being."

e) and so, therefore: "...Heidegger includes even science and
philosophy within the kinds of “trafficking … over beings” that
technology exhibits."

f) "The idea of existence, Heidegger thinks, is still part of the
metaphysical tradition from which he is trying to break.  Rather than
invert the traditional priority between essence and existence,
Heidegger wants to transcend this distinction by thinking back to its
original ground.  To do this, he invents a new term for what man does:
he ek-sists."

f 1/2) he thinks that a better relationship would be to ---
"replace the representational idea of truth with an older idea, the
Greek notion of truth as aletheia.  Aletheia can perhaps best be
translated as “unveiling” or “unveiledness”; it expresses the idea of
truth as something’s coming to light, appearing as it is.
(Etymologically, aletheia means the undoing of lethe; lethe was the
mythological river of sleep or oblivion, across which the dead must
pass before entering Hades).  Heidegger’s new conception of truth as
aletheia intends to replace the representationalist, objectifying
notion of truth as correctness with a picture on which the
relationship of man to Being is revealed, rather than obscured.  When
truth “happens,” as aletheia, beings show up, not as objects of
representation, but as the beings they are.  More importantly,
perhaps, Being itself shows up, reveals itself, “happens” or
propriates (Ereignet) in the space proper to it, the space of the
clearing which is the place of Being itself.

g) "To evaluate is to measure, weigh, or compare against a standard.
In so measuring a object, situation, or person, we stand before it and
act upon it; we reduce it to a single aspect - its value.  Heidegger
complains that in doing this, we do not allow this object, situation,
or person to be. Rather, in focusing on its value - what it is or what
it means to us - we forget to think about its being.  In this way,
beings (including people!) become, once more, mere objects of our
calculating, evaluating decisions."

h) Hey, maybe it's like in that movie, Roxanne (the Steve Martin
version) where the young fireman tells Roxanne "sometimes I like to go
to the park with a meat sandwich, and just Be!"

(or not...)