The famous work Being and Time by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger has a dedication that became ironic and provocative of much speculation on account of the light of events that took place about a decade after the book was first published in 1926,and emerged as one of the most important works of Western thought.
The dedication reads:
Dedicated to
EDMUND HUSSERL
in friendship and admiration
Todtnauberg in Baden,Black Forest
8 April 1926
Every line in this dedication is loaded with meaning,some of which would not have been known to the actors in the drama that was still unfolding between the master Husserl and his student Heidegger,since those ironic meanings would only emerge with time,and even now,long after Husserl and Heidegger are long gone,these meanings are still being debated.
Basically,the unfolding drama that led to those ironic meanings is encapsulated for me in an account that Heidegger,who later became Rector,or President on the same university where he had been taught and mentored by Heidegger,carrying out directives by the anti-Jewish Nazi Party,forbade his former mentor ,who was Jewish,from using the university library,a move that deeply pained the aging master.Another aspect of that irony emerges in the fact that not only did Heideggeer identify fully with the Nazi Party,in doing that he went against the adoration of a number of his students,figures who eventually achieved philosophical prominence in their won right,and who were Jews,two of the most famous being Hannah Arendt,understood to have been Hedeggers lover when she was his student,and Hans George Gadamer,who is most famous for Truth and Method,described as .The much later work of ,who came generations after the German philosopher and his students,could also have owed much to H3edigger,in spite of the sensitivity of the Drench Jewish scholar to the shadowy aspects of the great philosophers reputation.
book,that explores these ironic relationships,is graphically titled,Heidegger's Children.
One of the question that emerges from Heidegger's embrace of Nazism,i its racist glory,is that of the possible relationship between his style of philosophy and those political beliefs.His convictions about those beliefs are attested by his addresses as university rector and other actions during the Nazi period,so his collaboration cannot be attributed to an effort to simply appease a dominant political and military movement.Not only did Heideggger not demonstrate the principles resistance to Nazism of such a figure as Martin Niemullerr,but he actively participated in the Nazi ideology.
Why?
The second very suggestive aspect of that dedication is the location in which it was written,the Black Forest.Heidegger had a hut in the forest where he used to do his philosophical work.This suggests a marked devotion to solitude in the pursuit of those depths of thought that philosophers seek.Heideggers book demonstrates that depth in a distinctive way that further provokes relating with solitary reflection on the most exacting questions.The subject of his wirk and his style of writing suggest Biodun Jeyifo's description of some of the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka's works as demonstrating the attitude of a mystagogue,an initiator or leader of others into the encounter with mysteries.
What is Hedeggers key subject?
It is being,the fact of existing.
He announces what he describes as the perplexing character of this phenomenon in manner that suggests the spirit of an adept in various bodies of knowledge integrating them in order to engage full blooded a topic of the utmost significance:he opens the brief but very pregnant foreword with a quote from Plato in Classical Greek,which he translates in a footnote as indicating Plato contrast of his own puzzlement at the subject with his own earlier assurance of knowledge and the assured knowledge of others.The first pages of the introduction will include quotes from Plato's student Aristotle in Greek,from the medieval Christian thinker Thomas Aquinas in Latin,and a footnote from Pascal in French,suggesting the thoroughness of Hedegger's philosophical education,at least in relation to the relative homogeneity of Western philosophy as a largely rooted in Europe.These quotes suggest the German scholars grasp of the indispensable links between the Classical Greek and later Western cultures,a link that achieves a distinctive concretisation in Aquinas epochal use of Aristotle,after his work was made available through translations from Arab texts after they had been lost to the West for centuries.Pascal is also vital as demonstrating profound reflections on existence in a style that combines the depth of the committed thinker and a creative freedom that is able to suggest powerfully the relationship of profound abstract questions to concrete human experience that is such a refreshing presence in Plato,the African thinker Augustine, the German Nietzsche, and the Indian Ramana Maharshi.
Heidegger proceeds to identify with Plato's PERPLEXITY and invokes the idea that in the centuries since Plato,this subject is still not better understood.In fact,understanding is hindered by a false claim to knowledge.
He then sets out his intention to justify his assertions and declare his method of exploring this question.
In many works,in different media,from the verbal to the visual,one encounters something of the esoteric.The esoteric in this sense,does not mean something deliberately concealed,but something that does not allow ease of access on account of its individualistic character:in this case,the writers individualistic,at times,idiosyncratic style of diction,their methods of developing ideas through integrating diction,concepts and sentence structure.In Heidegger's case,one seem to be following him to labyrinths of thought that represent not a polished text but the very contours of his thinking as he tries to wrestle with his subject.
The second sense of the esoteric emerges from the sense of the arcane that emerges from his manner of treating the subject matter in relation to the sense of gravity the writer evokes in relation to that subject.Heidegger wants to lead us to the depths of the very ground of our existence,at least as far as can be arrived at through ratiocinative means.He marshals the full range of his argumentative armoury,laying out his battalions in term of argumentative structure,setting out the target,and working out the means of approach to the target.Lucidly of organisation and transparency of method are his goal.He achieves that to a significant degree with his numbering of the various sections.As for lucidity in his style of expression to understand him,I am having to immerse myself in the work,avoiding any interruptions as I read and making sure I have significant blocks of time in which to pursue that immersion.Anything less than that would imply losing the thread,as one would lose the thread of a delicate and subtle but profound idea that had alighted into one's mind unexpectedly and one was trying to domesticate by engaging it in exploration so that one not only understands it but it becomes a part of the mind.
This effort at immersion in Heidegger's thinking means I am having to read I am having to read the sections I have gone through for at least the third time.each reading makes it clearer and more easily assimilated to my won mental world.Its like reading poetry.You need to understand the distinctive ways in which the poet uses words and the evocative universe in relation to which the poet is working,relating these to what you already know,and allowing an expansion into what you are unfamiliar with as that arise.As the translators put is "On any page of Heidegger, a lot is happening".
Herman Hesse makes an important point about the concept of the esoteric as described here.He argues that the necessity for anything more than effortless reading remembers the art of reading still an elite exercise in spite of the vast increase in many countries of literacy and of access to books.He claims that many if not most people would not be willing to address themselves to the subtleties of reading that are required to go deeper into the more accessible texts and to grasp the less accessible ones in the first place.For me,I realise that,whatever other books I might have read,some books must be read,whatever it takes.That is why I have chosen to engage with the thinker from the Black Forest.
Heidegger elucidates techniques of enquiry which are relevant to any effort to think something through in a systematic manner.His exposition of these strategies are carried out in a manner that suggests his absolute commitment to his enquiry.At the same time,however,I find that he seems to be repeat himself in a manner relevant to thinking within the confines of one's mind or in rough notes but not in published writing.
IMAGE
The symbol Dame Dame from the Akan and Gyama Adinkra system.
It is used here to suggest the being of the human person in relation to the coordinates that influence that being.The core of that being is at the centre of the structure,while its relationships to its influencing factors is suggested by the lines that link the centre to the circumference of the oval shape.
The oval shape also evokes the primordial egg within which the primal couple lived before their entry onto the earth in Dogon mythology.
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