Early Greek Thinking

Rating:
Summary: The Poetics of Translation
Review: It's been a long time since I read this book (it's currently out of print), but what I remember distinctly is Heidegger's refusal to be restricted by any codes of translation. He often takes just a single line - a fragment - of pre-Socratic Greek text, and tries to find in something that disloses the Ancient Greeks relationship to Being. What happens is the complete transposition of the fragmant to something like a short poem co-written at dawn by Paul Celan and Ted Hughes after a night reading Rilke. I doubt any one will read this, so I can be as pretentious as I like. As with all great poetry, this book, as with many others by the dark prince of philosophy, re-reveals much about our relationship to world. A world suffuse with Being, rather than objectified by it.

Rating:
Summary: A thought Provoking Book
Review: Like Nietzsche's writings, this book reflects the contemporary disatisfaction with - and distrust of - metaphysics. There is a beauty about the philosophy of the Pre-Socratics, at once poetry - and philosophy. Heidegger's way of looking at them - infinitely better than the rather silly view found in early 20th c. readings - that they were 'failed physicists.' Heidegger was right to point out that ancient Greek terms like'phusis' carried quite different nuances - along with 'logos' etc. Heidegger's exploration of the lethe-aletheia theme - central to all these essays, is well worth consideration. After all, something crucial was lost - in the linguistic transformation of aletheia into (latin) 'vertitas' - and then 'truth' (in English) - the idea of philosophy as the 'correctness' of representations. With justice, Heidegger argues that 'aletheia' is unconcealment - in which being comes to presence, not simply an occasion for making judgements about the validity or otherwise - of representations. If only for that, Heidegger's work is worth reading.

That said, whether these observations justify the fateful conclusions Heidegger arrived at about the course of Western philosophy as a whole, is another matter. He was influenced by Nietzsche, and Nietzsche's repudiation of Platonism as 'the palest and thinnest ideas of all.' Heidegger's work currently enjoys a wide following. Many would be loathe to see the Master criticized.

Still, there are those who would argue that Heidegger over-stated his case.There is a problematic side to Western philosophy - analytical methods which never give us what Heidegger meant by 'lebensphilosophie' - a 'philosophy of life' or lived experience (erlebniss). But surely, that sort of thing was a legacy of the 18th. c. 'Age of Reason' - which didn't have the 'wings' of Greek thinking. Arguably, Plato was the first 'Heideggerian' - who, after all, was concerned with the task of understanding the intrinsic relationship between that which 'appears' - and Being. Heideg- ger's theory of a 'secession of logos' and the split (chorismos) in Plato's philosophy between the 'forms' - and sensible things, is rather cavalier as interpretations go,based on Aristrotle's view of the Platonic Academy - in the hands of Xenocrates. Heidegger has paid scant regard to the changes or development in Plato's philosophy between the 'Theatetus' and the 'Sophist' - in that respect, bad hermeneutics and philology. If Platonism (or Neo Platonism) has been such a bad thing, a lifeless abstraction - why was it such a great inspiration for Renaissance thinkers - like Ficino and Mirandela? Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus were required reading for the Florentine Academy.Nobody could argue that the great Renaissance thinkers were forgetful of the relationship betwen 'beings' and 'Being' - and the last, most dramatic outpourings of the 'classical' spirit came - not from the Pre-Socratics, but from the legacy of Plato. Nietzsche saw the Renaissance as Plato inside out, a simplistic and essentially mistaken view. Arguably, Heidegger adopted an equally simplistic and misguided outlook, by elevating Nietzsche's judgement to a kind of final, apocalyptic revelation and pronouncement on 2,500 years of Western civilisation.Not everyone agrees. By all means, enjoy this book, enjoy the Pre-Socratics. Heidegger was not wrong about the danger of philosophy divorced from life and experience.Whether Plato made that mistake - is a good question. That would be easier to decide - reading 'Early Greek Thinking' - alongside the 'Parmenides' of Plato, the 'Theatetus' - and 'Sophist.'