[lit-ideas] Rorty on Heidegger's world-view(s)
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:38:08 -0800
On page 42 of Essays on Heidegger and Others, Rorty writes, ". . . after
seeming to contrast ontology and world-view, Heidegger goes on to say the
following: 'It is just because this positivity - that is, the relatedness
to beings, to world that is, Dasein that is - belongs to the essence of the
world-view, and thus in general to the formation of the world-view, that the
formation of a world-view cannot be the task of philosophy. To say this is
not to exclude but to include the idea that philosophy itself is a
distinctive primal for [ein ausgezeichnete Urform] of world-view.
Philosophy can and perhaps must show, among many other things, that
something like a world-view belongs to the essential nature of Dasein.
Philosophy can and must define what in general constitutes the structure of
a world-view. But it can never develop and posit some specific world-view
qua just this or that particular one.'
"But there is an obvious tension in this passage between the claim that
philosophy 'is a distinctive primal form of world-view' and that 'philosophy
. . . can never develop and posit some specific world-view.' Heidegger
never tells us how we can be historical through and through and yet
ahistorical enough to step outside our world-view and say something neutral
about the 'structure' of all actual and possible world-views. . . ."
COMMENT: Rorty then goes on to put the matter in his "own jargon" in order
to disagree with Heidegger, but if we leave this matter in Heidegger's terms
it makes excellent sense. To illustrate, after fighting an enormous number
of battles against the Cylons, the Battlestar Galactica crew encounters
another Battlestar, the Pegasus. The commanding officer of the Pegasus,
Admiral Cain is superior in rank to Commander Adama and at first Adama
accepts the new situation. Military protocol demands that Adama give way to
Cain, but Cain has developed a very different "world-view" from Adama and
his crew. Adama's military background is in "obvious tension" with the
world-view he and his crew developed in their fight against the Cylons.
When Admiral Cain arrests two of Adama's best men and plans to execute them,
Adama has had enough. Adama's "military world-view" gives way to his newer
"Galactica against the Cylon world-view." He is prepared to take the
Galactica to war against the Pegasus unless Cain returns his men unharmed.
This is a very "authentic" piece of writing. It illustrates Heidegger's
argument about "world-view." At one time the crews of the Galactica and
Pegasus were part of the same civilization and shared the same world-view,
but after the Cylon attack they went their own ways and developed unique
world-views; which as it turned out were not very compatible.
To use another example, consider the Christian Church. It is almost more
accurate to call it the Christian Churches because so many different
"world-views" have developed. We see the world-view-process at work in the
earliest days. Paul and Barnabas were sent off on an evangelism mission,
but the day came when the Paul realized that his "world-view" had diverged
from the "world-view" of the church at Jerusalem and sought a meeting to
reconcile their differences. They seemed to be largely reconciled, but
reconciliation didn't last. We are so used to "new world-views" being
developed in the Christian Church that we no longer are alarmed about it.
We don't have Paul's concern about ironing out all the differences and
achieving unity. And the longer our churches are separated the more
distinctive the world-views. Consider the differences between the Orthodox
churches and the Western Christian Churches. Then consider the differences
between the Lutheran and the Calvinistic Churches. The Western churches
since the Peace of Westphalia in 1641 have been learning to accept each
other. Still, we Christians do believe a meta-Christian-world-view exists.
It comprises the thoughts of God as God thinks them. Some believe their
particular church's "world-view" equals the meta-Christian-world view.
Others aren't quite that presumptuous. All are, more or less, tolerant of
the others. The secularism that grew out of the Christian Church has made
"tolerance" one of its cornerstones.
As Rorty worked through this subject he was not willing to let go of the
idea that philosophically their "could be only one." Perhaps there could be
different histories, but the job of philosophy was to cut through those
differences and find the one true ontology. For Heidegger the one truth is
that there have always been and probably will always be multiplicities of
world-views, weltanshauungen.
But what of Fukuyama's Liberal-Democratic World-View? Isn't that view
"one"? It is in a sense, a meta-world-view based on the "tolerance"
developed in the West since the Peace of Westphalia. It works well on the
level of the individual nations much as the Christian Church works well on
the level of the individual denominations. Much of the world seems amenable
to the Western sort of Tolerance. The Islamic Civilization seems to be a
hold-out at present but Fukuyama thinks they will eventually come around.
An article in Foreign Policy, Jan/Feb 2010 seems to support that view:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/04/the_islamists_are_not_comin
g
I haven't watched all the Battlestar Galactica episodes yet, but my
observation is that the Cylons, with their single World-View dominated the
humans who had multiple world views. The Cylons could operate in accordance
with a single plan. Humans couldn't manage that level of solidarity. Peace
between the Cylons and Humans won't be achieved until the Cylons become more
human - and learn to squabble amongst themselves.
Lawrence
Other related posts:
- » [lit-ideas] Rorty on Heidegger's world-view(s) - Lawrence Helm
