History Of Metaphysics Research Articles

Decline and Fall: Oculocentrism in Heidegger's Reading of the History of Metaphysics

Decline and Fall: Oculocentrism in Heidegger's Reading of the History of Metaphysics

Of the Soul, Translation, and History in Juan García Ponce

They provide the book-ends of Western history: Aristotle's De Anima takes its place within the oeuvre that inscribes the beginning of the history of metaphysics; Juan Garcia Ponce's De ?nima writes a Heideggerian wrinkle at the end of the history of metaphysics. These two texts, as their tides suggest, concern the soul, but their respective determinations of the soul reveal the underpinnings of their thought in ways far more profound than their metaphysical posturing de anima. On the one hand, metaphysics as we have traditionally understood it, did not yet exist prior to Aristotle's organization of philosophy's various disciplines. On the other hand, Garcia Ponce writes at the end of history, from within the space of postmodernity: the space that at every moment inscribes its own impossibility, its own unsiteliness. This unsiteliness marks the difference between Aristotle's and Garcia Ponce's discourses on the soul; for while Aristotle predicates existence on the structure of perception or sight, Garcia Ponce frets the site of the nonapparent. On the one hand,

Redoubled: The bridging of Derrida and Heidegger

of Jacques Derrida ? one wishes for an immersion in the phenomenon, in this case a text and a way of thinking, yet one is somewhat repelled by the cost of one's fideUty. Exposure to Derrida's work, even if that exposure is incomplete or careless, brings about a questioning of cer? tain deep-seated beliefs, a loss of faith in one's norms of sterility; the reader is asked to use a foreign toothbrush. Why does Derrida exercise such an effect? Why is it at this juncture in the history of metaphysics that Derrida appears and issues his challenge? How are we to situate Derrida within the general project of philosophy, especially since he positions himself outside of that same project? This paper will attempt to point toward answers to these and other questions, in fairly general terms. The relationship of Derrida to his most important predecessor, Martin Heidegger, will be explored, and it will be suggested that Derri? da, in the end, cannot fully accomp?sh his chosen task. According to Derrida, it has become necessary to admit that Western metaphysics has fa?ed to provide man with wisdom, or virtue, or knowledge, or the good life ? whatever goals different practitioners of the art have considered valuable. The realization of this fundamental fra?ty began with Nietzsche and was continued in the work of Heideg? ger. Derrida, though, not only realizes the problem, but also attempts a more radical solution than either of his historical counterparts, a solu? tion that he believes will carry the modern practitioner beyond the boundaries of philosophy itself. This solution does not propose a denial

Crossing over: Kafka's Metatextual Parable

Post-structuralist poetics has invented a new kind of pastoral paradise. In this deconstructed dia-verse, freeplay king. Wholes are out, pieces in; centers are displaced into margins; bricolage the model for creation; the book itself, as a fiction of unity and coherence, subverted by the corrosive action of its own textuality; the self a comforting delusion, identity a mirage, the ego a slippery double agent; the father more important as metaphor than as biological progenitor; language not a medium of subjective expression and mastery but the instrument of the subject's beneficent expropriation' by an alien, metaphorical structure. It seems as if the so-called uncanny critics2 had managed to remove all anxiety from the fantasy prevalent among schizophrenics of the body fragmented into pieces. Their practice of assimilating everything to textuality makes of the human psyche a kind of avoidance machine, constantly displacing, substituting, replacing, sliding and slipping away. A-void-dance, a dance around the void. Nietzsche is, of course, the thinker most often cited to support the possibility of a joyfully affirmative attitude towards the abysmal world of freeplay. This attitude, Derrida claims in a now famous passage, is no longer turned toward the origin, affirms freeplay and tries to pass beyond man and humanism, the name man being the name of that being who, throughout the history of metaphysics or of ontotheology-in other words, through the history of all of his history-has dreamed of full presence, the reassuring foundation, the origin and the end of the game.3 Note that Derrida says

Closure and Exclusion

The one seeks to decipher, dreams of deciphering a truth or an origin that transcends play and the order of the sign, and for it the necessity of interpretation is lived as a kind of exile. The other, no longer oriented towards origin, affirms play and strives to pass beyond man and humanism, man being the name of that being which, throughout the history of metaphysics or of ontotheology . . has dreamed of the plenitude of presence, of reassuring foundations, of origin and the end of play. ]L'6criture et la diff6rence (Paris: Seuil, 1967), p. 427; my translation]

Heidegger on Thinking

Heidegger on Thinking GRAEME NICHOLSON THE TERM "thinking," denken, which Heidegger uses so often, especially in his later works, is first and foremost a self-reference, a reference to the project which animates his works. The case of a body of work systematically employing a term to refer to itself is not unique or even strange. This is just the way Plato employs the term "philosophy," Hegel the term "Wissenschaft," and so on. This paper describes Heideggerian thinking, drawing on the statements he has made about it himself. We could have described his thinking independently of these second-order remarks--there are many essays in which its typical procedures appear dearly before our eyes. But his own remarks on the subject add up to a considerable testimony nevertheless. If Heidegger's comments on thinking are a self-reference, then they are not concerned with "thought-processes" in general--reasoning, fantasy, consciousness, and so on--all the psychic experiences we are more or less acquainted with and which psychologists study. Hence these psychic phenomena are not our concern here. Naturally the question will arise as to the connection between Heidegger's thinking and the multitude of operations which are commonly given this name. But then the prior question--whether there is any unity in this field of phenomena--would impose itself. It is necessary to describe Heidegger's thinking before trying to connect it with these phenomena: if this order were reversed, we would be sidetracked into a thicket of problems in psychology. This paper offers only the description. By Heidegger's own account, his thinking is not an autonomous activity, depending on no conditions outside itself. His references to it invariably situate it in rdation to a condition or correlate outside, which is what he calls "being." Being, as he says, is the element of thought.1 It might seem to follow from this that any description of Heideggerian thinking, if it is not to be an abstraction removing it from its dement, must begin with a study of the element, and only then proceed to define the sort of thought that is suitable to it. Thus we would need to make a detour through the question of being. However, I believe this is not true. It is possible to describe thinking without the detour, provided that a clear index of the heteronomy of thought can be discerned within thought itself. I shall show that wherever this thinking occurs a three-part structure is formed, in which the activity of thinking is only one of the factors. One of the other two 1 This is the main point of Was Heisst Denken? (Tiibingen, 1954; hereafter abbreviated WD), and is stated clearly on the first few pages; for English translation (hereafter "e.t.") of. What is Called Thinking? tr. F. D. Wieck and J. G. Gray (New York, 1968); all page references in this paper are to the German texts. The Brief iiber den Humanismus (Frankfurt, 1949; hereafter HB), pp. 6ft., also uses the term "element"; e.t., "Letter on Humanism," tr. E. Lohner in Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, ed. W. Barrett and H. D. Aiken (New York, 1962). It likens thinking to the fish, and being, as the element of thinking, to the water, and compares any discussion of thinking without a study of its element to an experiment which would determine the powers of the fish according to how well it could function on dry land. A comparable discussion is found in Vortrtige und Au/stitze (Pfullingen, 1954; hereafter VA), pp. 139-143. [491] 492 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY factors will be the index of the heteronomy of thought. So our description of thinking will contain the mark of its own incompleteness. Let us begin the study with a glance at the historical aspect of Heidegger's work. The thinking he practices and describes stands in historical sequence to Platonic philosophy, Hegelian Wissenschaft, and other intervening and subsequent forms of research. This historical sequence allows Heidegger to emphasize the break between his thinking and the preceding history of philosophy.-~He sees that history as a totality, as the single history of metaphysics which begins with Plato and reaches its...

Douala : formation et développement de la ville pendant la colonisation.

R. Gouellain — Douala : Formation and Development of the City during the Colonial Period. Metaphysical history of space organisation among the Duala prior to German occupation. Colonial ideology and dominance in relation to urbanisation process and native résistance.

Seinsverlassenheitin the later philosophy of Heidegger

According to Heidegger, we are living in an ever worsening ‘worldnight’, whose fundamental nihilism is due to an ‘abandonment by Being’ (Seinsverlassenheit) or a ‘forgetting of Being’ (Seinsvergessenheit). In this paper, I attempt to clarify the notion of an ‘abandonment by Being’ through an examination of two themes prominent in Heidegger's later philosophy: Being as ‘event’ (Ereignis); and the obscure ‘mystery’ or ‘secret’ of Being. ’Seinsvergessenheit’ is interpreted as a forgetting of the mystery or secret of Being which is the ‘ontological difference’ between Being and beings, i.e. between some concrete revelation of a world and the conditions which make possible any revelation whatsoever. Since these conditions make up that ontological structure which is Dasein and since Dasein is human being, to forget Being is to be in a condition of profound self‐estrangement. The origin and growth of this condition constitutes the history of metaphysics, which unfolds as the history of a progressive increase in ...

Metaphysics for Positivists

What is metaphysics? There is real danger of taking the meaning of this term too much for granted, and of leaning too heavily upon an undefined word in the very act of dismissing metaphysics as word jugglery. Metaphysics is not, as I conceive it, the study of the wholly transcendent or supersensible. It may sometimes have been so conceived, and this is, indeed, one reason why some of its alleged results are so unsatisfactory—or, as positivists would say, meaningless. Such a meaningless “metaphysical” idea is the mediaeval doctrine of God as a power acting upon the world but not reacted upon by it, as purposive but non-temporal, loving but “impassive,” etc. Such is the windowless monad of Leibniz, connected with other monads only by pre-established harmony. Such is the Aristotelian idea of substance as that in which other things inhere but which itself is in nothing (apparently not even in the world or nature). The history of metaphysics is, indeed, strewn with failures to achieve meaning. But does this mean that metaphysics has scored no successes? Surely we must remember that human success is invariably of the fumble-and-correction type. Ideas such as those mentioned may be meaningless as they stand, and yet have potential meaning in that some modification of them might render them significant conceptions. We must also remember that mankind now possesses new instruments of logical analysis, and that these instruments may prove useful in metaphysics—not, as logical positivism holds, with the result of banishing all metaphysical ideas, but of correcting their erroneous aspects.

Spinoza

February 21st will mark the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the death of Spinoza, which occurred on February 21st, 1677. The visitor to the Hague may still see, in the Paviljoensgragt, the small two-storied house in the top rooms of which Spinoza spent the last six years of his short life. A tablet placed under the top windows commemorates the fact. It was in these rooms that Spinoza completed his Ethica, which may perhaps be regarded as the greatest masterpiece in the history of Metaphysics. The house is in danger of being pulled down, and the Spinoza Society is endeavouring to secure it as a memorial to Spinoza, and a centre of philosophic studies. It is not so long since the house-breakers I had their way with the home of Erasmus in Rotterdam. It would be sad indeed if the abode of another of the greatest Humanists were to meet with a like fate. It is to be hoped that the revived I interest in Spinoza which we are witnessing now may take the I practical form of saving this precious relic, which may well serve to promote the peace and goodwill among men which Spinoza had so much at heart.

The Circulation within the Cranium in relation to Mental Disorders; and on German Psychological Medicine

Within the last twenty years, the influence of German literature and science, previously little felt, has operated strongly upon English thought and English society. German literature, popularized by translation, finds a multitude of admiring readers; yet, compared with German science, its effects on the opinions and, consequently, on the practical habits of our fellow-countrymen have been trifling. In the modern history of metaphysics, German works occupy a most prominent place; and in religious thought, such has been the influence of the productions of the German press, that the prevailing theology is deeply imbued with what are called the rationalistic or neological principles of German professors. So when we look to modern physic, we also find its principles intimately connected with the researches and hypotheses of German physicians; so much so, indeed, that there has arisen in the medical profession a rational school, ignoring many an old-world theory of the principles and practice of medicine. What has been more popular, more readily received in this country than German physiology? It is not only represented by translated treatises, but actually forms the basis of home-produced works. The German writers furnish, in their elaborate treatises and monographs, the quarry from which the material is mainly drawn for the construction of English works; and this we can safely assert, after giving credit for much good English matter and for skill in modelling the whole structure to the English taste. German physiology, having preceded, has latterly been followed by German pathology, foremost among the teachers of which stands Professor Virchow, whose remarkable treatise on cellular pathology has recently appeared in an English dress, and commends itself by the mass of facts it contains, as well as by its ingenious hypotheses, to every pathological student.