Drovbert t1_ism2fa5 wrote
Reply to comment by zedority in Bruno Latour posed a major challenge to modern philosophy’s key assumption - a distinction between the human subject and the world. Philosophy as a field is yet to properly understand the importance of his contribution | Graham Harman. by IAI_Admin
I am not an expert on Heidegger, just reading through Being and Time atm (I have studied philosophy for seven years, sometimes in school sometimes on my own. My main focus is on Nietzsche, but I go to school in English, and nobody teaches 'Continental' stuff here) Some of it makes sense to me, other bits do not. Heidegger's style is obscure and often obtuse, and unreasonably so in my opinion. It is probably cleverer (though not necessarily much less obscure) in German from what I have seen from footnotes, etc. in my translation, but my German is not at all good enough to appreciate it. There is nevertheless, some method to it, even if it means we have to read his works with a solid dictionary in hand which explains the etymological connections which are not readily apparent in a more surface level reading. It is a difficulty I am familiar with however, due to my study of Nietzsche, who knew multiple ancient languages inside and out, and who likewise had a similar understanding of his own German.
I figured Latour would probably object to the centrality of human being in Heidegger, regardless of any subject-object framing of the problem. That makes sense from my 15 min reading of Latour's wiki page. Moreover it is a generally fair objection, even if I would personally disagree with it. It seems to me presuming to approach anything philosophical from the standpoint of an outsider such as a dog or a cat is simply dubious at best, and so we must start from an analysis of human being if we are to get at being in any sense. Certainly it is probable that animals share much in common with humans in their being in the world, but we are far less certain of all the details. Humanity is obscure enough as it is. It would also be fair to level this charge against Heidegger because he seems to presume a commonality between all humans which may at times be in error. Heidegger offers no proofs as to a great number of the insights he offers in Being and Time, instead relying on self examination and analysis and simply hoping that the reader will agree with him. It would also be fair to object to this. Yet deducing things we cannot know from what we do know does seem to me an error in methodology, and Heidegger's creative approaches to circumventing artificial barriers to our knowledge is perhaps the most interesting thing about his thinking.
Heidegger's later work is suspect to me for obvious reasons, and it's been a while since I have examined it, having first encountered his 'Question of Technology' in my second year of university. The last time I have read it was probably six years ago. I remember being impressed by his profound understanding of Aristotle and his grandiloquent doomsaying (we are after all, in grave danger due to technology,) but I am uncertain whether I would agree with the way he thinks about technology today. It probably did not help that the main objection to Heidegger's prophecisations against technology which we studied in that class was Emannuel Levinas' 'Heidegger, Gagarin, and Us,' whose religious framing of the problem and whose emphasis on the human utility of technology as overagainst any environmental concerns, struck me as chauvanistic and vulgar at the time and further galvanised me in favour of Heidegger's approach. I have not read that in years either, however. Today I am also more pragmatic, it is not a god which will save us from nuclear war or climate change or anything else technological, but rather humans, and possibly technology itself, if such saving is possible at all. From what I have seen of the literature most Heidegger scholars seem to argue that he himself is not a Luddite, though he is suspicious of technology. Again however, that was years ago for an undergrad paper. I were to be superstitious I would guess that Heidegger's sentiments against technology are more deeply ingrained in his own personal, romantic view of agrarian living, which beneath all his poetic posturing and profundity is really grounded on the bases of little more than his own parochial nostalgia for the old-fashioned rural communities he grew up in, which may and probably does even boarder on the fascistic.
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