On Tue, 24 Aug 1999, Erik Hoogcarspel wrote:
> Lichtung means a clearing in the wood here, where the trees let
> through a bit of sunshine. My interpretation off hand would be that in
> the forest of language there can be places with a hinch of truth
> (aletheia). Old Marty was a mystic allright, but a very gentle and
> bureaucratic one.
Well ... there is lightning as well as lighting in the English
translations of Heidegger--the second last paragraph of "The Turning" (in
_The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays_, tr. and ed. William
Lovitt) reads: "Will we see the lightning-flash of Being in the essence of
technology? The flash that comes out of stillness, as stillness itself?
Stillness stills. What does it still? It stills Being into the coming to
presence of world." I don't know what German word is translated as
"lightning-flash"; given that the flash is "stillness itself", perhaps the
violent connotations of "lightning" are inappropriate--or perhaps the
tension is intentional?--to someone unfamiliar with Heidegger's later
work, it would no doubt seem strange to call him "gentle"; he was, after
all, a Nazi ... but he was also gentle, *and* a Nazi. A violent stillness,
purifying fire....
Matthew
---Matthew A. King---Department of Philosophy---York University, Toronto---
"We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking."
------------------------------(Albert Camus)-------------------------------
> Lichtung means a clearing in the wood here, where the trees let
> through a bit of sunshine. My interpretation off hand would be that in
> the forest of language there can be places with a hinch of truth
> (aletheia). Old Marty was a mystic allright, but a very gentle and
> bureaucratic one.
Well ... there is lightning as well as lighting in the English
translations of Heidegger--the second last paragraph of "The Turning" (in
_The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays_, tr. and ed. William
Lovitt) reads: "Will we see the lightning-flash of Being in the essence of
technology? The flash that comes out of stillness, as stillness itself?
Stillness stills. What does it still? It stills Being into the coming to
presence of world." I don't know what German word is translated as
"lightning-flash"; given that the flash is "stillness itself", perhaps the
violent connotations of "lightning" are inappropriate--or perhaps the
tension is intentional?--to someone unfamiliar with Heidegger's later
work, it would no doubt seem strange to call him "gentle"; he was, after
all, a Nazi ... but he was also gentle, *and* a Nazi. A violent stillness,
purifying fire....
Matthew
---Matthew A. King---Department of Philosophy---York University, Toronto---
"We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking."
------------------------------(Albert Camus)-------------------------------