[lit-ideas] Re: The Nothing Noths
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:50:04 -0400 (EDT)
In a message dated 3/27/2014 7:15:46 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, R. Paul,
Secretary to the Meinong Society -- rpaul@xxxxxxxx writes -- about some
>real scholarly information about nothing, from the Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, not to be confused with the >Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
or
the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Clicking on the link...
>http://www.nothing.com/Heath.html
>..will lead to further information on nothing.
Interesting. Since C. Bruce speaks the Teutonic language, we may need to
explore this further.
The Nothing noths.
is the translation I'm sort of familiar with. Apparently, the banality with
appearance of meaning that Heidegger uttered was:
"Das Nichts nichtet"
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/ayer01.htm
Ayer writes:
"To this error must be attributed, not only the utterances of a Heidegger,
who bases his metaphysics on the assumption that "Nothing" is a name which
is used to denote something peculiarly mysterious, (Vide Was ist
Metaphysik, by Heidegger: criticised by Rudolf Carnap in his "tFberwindung der
Metaphysik durch logische Analyse der Sprache," Er-kmntnis, Vol. II, 1932.)
but
also the prevalence of such problems as those concerning the reality of
propositions and universals whose senselessness, though less obvious, is no
less complete."
This reminds one of Odysseus. The cyclops aske:
"Who did this?"
"Nobody"
Odysseus meant the cyclops to believe that Odysseus's name was "Nobody".
Similarly, to quote Ayer, Heidegger seems to be meaning that "Nothing" "is
a name which is used to denote something pecularly mysterious."
Oddly, ditto for Sartre -- and there's a cabaret in Paris called "Nothing"
(in French).
A further problem besides the subject -- grammatical subject -- of "The
nothing noths" -- is the predicate: "noths".
In German:
Das Nichts nichtet.
If the nothing noths, I claim, the aught aughts. Or not.
I'm not surprised that Jaensch and others ound that the utterance by
Heidegger, to quote from C. Bruce. it was Ernest Krieck, who said that
""nichts darin von Volk und Staat, von Rasse und alle werten unseres
nationalsozialistischen Weltbildes" [there's nothing in it about 'people' and
'state', about 'race' and all the values of our national-socialist world
view."
Indeed, there is nothing about people, state and race in a pretty harmless
statement (which Carnap found syntactically ill-formed) such as "The
Nothing Noths". Or noths.
-----
Cheers,
Speranza
aught
"something," Old English awiht "aught, anything, something," literally
"e'er a whit," from Proto-Germanic *aiwi "ever" (from PIE *aiw- "vital force,
life, long life, eternity;" see eon) + *wihti "thing, anything whatever"
(see wight). In Shakespeare, Milton and Pope, aught and ought occur
indiscriminately.
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