[lit-ideas] Re: 30 years ago today ?

  • From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 27 May 2006 23:00:03 -0700 (PDT)


--- John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


> 
> This is, as I understand it, the popular view
> against which Rorty is
> speaking. Instead, he offers the proposition that
> philosophy, in a
> narrower, technical, professional sense, may have
> little to do with
> political attitudes, a case nicely illustrated by
> the example of Frege
> provided below. 

*Robert's example of Frege also nicely illustrates
that Heidegger might be a different case. We also
don't necessarily think that Bertrand Russell's less
than immaculate personal conduct is relevant to his
logical paradoxes etc. On the other hand, Socrates'
attraction to adolescent boys does seem to be in some
way relevant to his moral philosophy, since it is
dealt with in several of the dialogues. (He is not
dismissed on those grounds.)

In support of this proposition,
> Rorty himself asserts,
> as I have mentioned before, that John Dewey and
> Heidegger's views on
> the philosophy of language are very similar, while
> their politics,
> social democratic and Nazi respectively, are not.

*I'd like to hear some more detail about these
allegedly very similar philosophies of language. H's
philosophy of language is actually extremely
complicated and problematic. For example, did Dewey
hold that Greek was the only language in which
philosophical ideas can be properly expressed ?


> 
> 
> > People worry about the relation between
> Heidegger's Nazi sympathies and
> > the content, or even the usefulness of his
> philosophical writings. If
> > he'd been a mathematical logician, surely this
> difficulty wouldn't have
> > arisen; but since it has, I can only say that
> insofar as Heidegger
> > purports to tell us something about the human
> condition, I cannot
> > respect?I think that's the word I want?what he
> says.
> >
> > I know that others disagree.
> 
> 
> I would disagree, but not because I hold any
> particular brief for
> Heidegger. My concern is the more general one that
> we hear so much
> discussion these days in which assessments of
> character appear to
> trump judgments concerning both logic and tropes.*
> So we tend to
> decide a priori, having heard that X is a bad
> individual, that what he
> or she has to say isn't worth listening to. This
> character-assassination-first approach not only may
> prevent us from
> learning something useful, it also tends to erode
> the common ground on
> which all rational discussion takes place.**

*It seems to me that your concerns are exaggerated. I
wasn't necessarily suggesting that Heidegger is
irrelevant; I've read some of him and will probably
read him again. I am not however persuaded that he is
the most important philosopher of the 20th century,
still less that he is the figure that will tower over
philosophy in the centuries to come. Incidentally,
much of the supposed academic debate of Heidegger is
centered precisely on the issue of his Nazism, and I
on my part am a bit concerned that the Heidegger
fascination in some circles might be not despite, but
because of his Nazism. If anyone wanted to start a
rational discussion of Heidegger, they would impress
me more by discussing some concrete ideas or texts
than by making grand assertions about his importance
or giving pedagogical lectures of the sort you provide
above. 

O.K.

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