The empirical concept of a plate is homogeneous with the pure geometrical concept of a circle. The roundness which is thought in the former can be intuited in the latter. (The Critique of Pure Reason, A137/B176)
The normative motion of the potter's wheel is homogeneous with the pure sculptural emotion of the cylinder. The spinning that can be felt in the former can be instituted in the latter. (The Crisis of Brute Passion)
Who is humanity? asks Heidegger. Not, What is humanity? Moreover, he ties the issue both to history and to poetry: "The thinking of Parmenides and Heraclitus is still poetic, and here this means philosophical, not scientific" (IM, 154 [110]). The shift from "what" to "who" is wholly correct: "what" is to the world as "who" is to history. Also, it is no doubt correct (I'm certainly not going to question it) that thinking at the time of Parmenides was more like poetry than science.
Today, by contrast, philosophy is more like science than poetry. And poetry is more like politics than philosophy. In fact, I would question Heidegger only in his approach: what, after all, is he doing in his Introduction to Metaphysics? He seems to be trying to replace metaphysics with some sort of anthropology. It is no wonder he gets himself into trouble on the subject of National Socialism at the end of the course (213 [152]). After all, if the question is "Who is humanity?" then the struggle over the answer is political.
Whatever his aim, he seems to be bound to producing a "logos" of human existence (Dasein). That is, he wants to give us an account of the subject. But perhaps the project of trying to account for, to understand, human existence is doomed from the start. In "the humanities", there is no understanding, only obedience (as Deleuze and Guattari have suggested somewhere, I think).
We don't think we are human; if we do, we feel it. The consequence is a rigorously a-logical approach to human existence. No logos. Pathos. Not anthropology but anthropopathy (an ugly enough word). A story, or better a passion, of humanity, not an account or logic of it. A poem that contains history. An epic.
"What I have to say is nothing new and does not pretend to be anything more than the expression of the opinion of an independent and honest man who, unburdened by class or national prejudices, desires nothing but the good of humanity and the most harmonious possible scheme of human existence." (Albert Einstein, "Thoughts on the World Economic Crisis", 1934, reprinted in Ideas and Opinions, 1954, p. 87-8)
...this thinking is, compared to metaphysical thinking, much simpler than philosophy, but precisely because of its simplicity it is much more difficult to carry out. And it calls for new care with language, not the invention of new terms, as I once thought...
Reading it, I thought of the difference between the early Heidegger and the later Wittgenstein. Could we not argue that the Philosophical Investigations are "simpler than philosophy" and display a particular "care with language"?
(With apologies to Gottlob Frege.)
Difference gives rise to challenging questions which are not altogether easy to answer. Is it a position? A position among subjects, or among names or signs of subjects? In my Ergriffsschrift I will assume the latter. The passions which seem to favour this are the following...
I think existentialism is due for a revival, especially in a "financial" variant. Roughly speaking, existentialism taught us to face the fact that we're all going to die. We "must not be afraid" of it (as it says somewhere in Nausea.) We must, rather, be "resolute and anxious" about it, as Heidegger puts it. Existentialism also taught us to distinguish between our ontological "guilt" and our merely ontic "debts". (There are really interesting etymologies at work here.)
In my opinion, the whole Western-democratic model of statecraft, which distinguishes sharply between monetary and fiscal policy, is to blame for our alienation from existence, our inauthenticity, ultimately our enslavement. Everything that is wrong with our culture traces back to the sense that we owe something and that we must not, whatever happens, die. If everyone resolved only to feel indebted in the ordinary sense, and accepted the fact that they will one day die, a great deal of needless insurance, mortgaging, and pension planning would be avoided. This would, of course, undermine the basic fabric of the society that is today being run by a financial oligarchy.
This is obviously a basically Poundian position.
