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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

philosophy as "destruktion" « Previous | |Next »
February 9, 2006

Heidegger relates the concepts of "destruktion" (destruction or destructuring) and "Abbau" (deconstruction) in The Basic Problems in Phenomenology" as follows:

The store of basic philosophical concepts derived from the philosophical tradition is still so influential today that this effect of tradition can hardly be overestimated. It is for this reason that all philosophical discussion, even the most radical attempt to begin all over again, is pervaded by traditional concepts and thus by traditional horizons and traditional angles of approach, which we cannot assume with unquestionable certainty to have arisen originally and genuinely from the domain of being and the constitution of being they claim to comprehend. It is for this reason that there necessarily belongs to the conceptual interpretation of being and its structures, that is, to the reductive construction of being, a destruction - a critical process in which the traditional concepts, which at first must necessarily be employed, are de-constructed down to the sources from which they were drawn. Only by means of this destruction can ontology fully assure itself in a phenomenological way of the genuine character of its concepts.

The point is not to gain some knowledge about philosophy but to be able to philosophise---by using concepts against themselves. Tis a big difference.

So much for Richard Wolin's claim that Heidegger rejects reason. As I said Wolin writes books about philosophers he hasn't read. He's a historian of philosophy and so he reads the secondary literature.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:58 PM | | Comments (0)
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