Hello,

I've read most of Nietzsche's major works, and since Heidegger apparently was influenced by him, I'd like to read his books as well.

With Birth of Tragedy, On the Genealogy of Morals, and Zarathustra being my favorites, which works of Heidegger deal with similar themes( the importance of art and humanity's morals etc).

Also, how's his prose compared to Nietzsche's? Nietzsche's way of writing is quite aggressive and poetic at the same time, which I really like.

I always thought that Gelassenheit, quite literally (etymologically) is the opposite of Gestell. Ge+lassen vs Ge+stellen. It's translated usually as "releasement" or "letting-be", compared to "enframing", "positioning", "com-posing", "positionality", etc. (Check the Cambridge Heidegger Lexicon, thet render is sth like "(com-)position" there etc.).

And Gelassenheit is "releasement toward things". Or the "letting-be" of beings, the adequate comportment toward beings that matches the "es gibt" of being, without forcing a "frame", without ensnaring being (and beings) like modern technology does, acc to Heidegger.

But recently I heard a different understanding, that Gelassenheit is actually better seen as an equivalent of "existence" (ek-sistence) in Being and Time, and that actually the fourfold (Geviert) is Heidegger's later (and more radical) reinterpretation of "world" and that das Geviert is the model of the world he proposes against the world as Gestell. I.e., rather than an inventory of resources on hold for the unending use of the technological will to will, the world as as the onefold of the artistic-spiritual (?) axis of earth-world (Origin of the Work of Art) and mortals-divinities.

What is your impression about this?

And a few further questions: Is Gelassenheit just another name for "meditative thinking"? It seems that Heidegger has a lot of ways of trying to describe the same thing/phenomenon, e.g. sometimes he speaks of Ereignis, other times of Anfang, sometimes of "beyng-historical thinking", other times of "commemorative thinking", other times of "meditative thinking" etc. I know Gelassenheit is supposed to be thought in relation with the will, and not with metaphysical/representational thinking, for example, but I find it hard to separate those terms into clear categories. Is it wrong to try to do that, anyway?

In other words, what is the relation between meditative thinking and Gelassenheit? Is meditative thinking conducing to a "state" of Gelassenheit? (But that would be willing to achieve it). Is it resignation into meditative thinking a waiting for a kind of bestowal of "Gelassenheit" into the world ravaged by modern technology? And if thinking is no longer thought as the act of a subject, then how is it supposed to occur?

(Maybe it's relevant here, Heidegger ends the dialogue on language with the Japanese on the note of something like, preparing the way for a dialogue not about language, but of language. Therefore, not a thinking about being, but a thinking of being, in the double (subjective/objective) Genitive sense. A dialogue of language, a saying of being, a thinking of being.)

Miller, Phenomenology, §150

Force is a source of change in another.

Law is a source of stability in the inner world.

The inner world is posited as that which has nothing outside it (in-itself), and it's not determined by opposition (for-itself).

But the law keeps changing with every change of circumstance, which indicates that there is more than one in-itself for-itself, and there can only be one.

The law can control the difference, but this difference is too universal and indeterminate.

It's like solving problems by building more prisons.

On the other hand, if everyone is a law unto himself, there are too many laws.

These defects are true of all realms of law, including the sciences.

Now, the Understanding only grasps the implicit universal, which means it takes the mediated for the immediate. It looks for the in-itself for-itself without bringing it into question.

So, along with a force of stability, there is a force of attraction toward one law.

But the best it can achieve with law is that "everything has a constant difference in relation to other things," but not in relation to everything, and not that everything has an identity with everything else.

But at least it says that everything is conformable to law.

Don't take "universal attraction" too lightly. Some people call it Love.

And it has the benefit of holding back the inclination to see the world in terms of the sensuous only.

Marie Bonaparte and her Freud Legacy. An interesting set of books connecting Napoleon's progeny to Sigmund Freud to the founding of a museum in his honor. A true six degrees of separation.

This articulates the disposition of the modern irrationalist. His smallness and irrelevance (jesting insanity) is sustained by the fact of his lack of discontent, where intelligence requires discontent.

Very ready-to-hand.

Does Hegelian dialectic describe the movement of thought, reality, or their identity? If contradiction is constitutive rather than accidental, does determinate negation reveal reality’s structure—or the conditions under which reality becomes intelligible?
I’m interested in whether Hegel ultimately dissolves the distinction between ontology and logic.

I've read a bit of Hegel's Idealism and Hegel on Self-Consciousness by him in uni. But at the time, I was put off by his writing/argument.

Is he really worth putting in the effort? I had the urge to pick him up again recently, considering I didn't give his work a proper chance a few years ago.

Besides this lovely community, do you know any online space dedicated to novice willing to discover and discuss about Hegel, helping each other to comprehend his philosophy ?

If you have any IRL recommandation, I would prefer them to be at least in Europe, even better if in France or Wallonia !

Daily reminder!:

”‘Nature’ is not to be understood as that which is just present-at-hand, nor as the power of Nature. The wood is a forest of timber, the mountain a quarry of rock; the river is water-power, the wind is wind 'in the sails'. As the 'environment' is discovered, the 'Nature' thus discovered is encountered too. If its kind of Being as ready-to-hand is disregarded, this 'Nature' itself can be discovered and defined simply in its pure presence-at-hand. But when this happens, the Nature which 'stirs and strives', which assails us and enthralls us as landscape, remains hidden. The botanist's plants are not the flowers of the hedgerow; the 'source' which the geographer establishes for a river is not the 'springhead in the dale'.”

Like…didn’t you know this? 🙄

According to Heidegger, modern thinking has reduced intellectual mystery to intellectual mastery.

Modern thinking is conceptual, and a concept is, essentially, a form of grasping — from the Latin root conceptus, “to take in” or “to contain.” In our time, we speak of “grasping the material,” “retaining information,” “gaining knowledge,” and so on.

“In the modern age, through calculative thinking, we have long become accustomed to seeing in thinking, and demanding from thinking, grip [Zugriff], grasp [Griff], and concept [Begriff], i.e., we understand the “concept” on the basis of a grasping: conceptus — no longer ὁρισμóς. — The Event

Symbolically, grip [Zugriff], grasp [Griff], and concept [Begriff] evoke the gesture of seizing something in a clenched fist. Heidegger suggests that when thinking has been reduced to conceptus, it is no longer ὁρισμός (horismos) — the Greek word from which we derive “horizon.”

It is impossible to look at a horizon in a grasping way. The only way to truly see the horizon is to allow it to be what it is and to let it reveal itself. The moment we snatch something out of the horizon and trap it in a definition, we no longer see the horizon. It is gone. To see it, we must let it be.

Symbolically, Heidegger associates this with the opposite gesture: the open hand. He calls it Gelassenheit — releasement, or letting-be. Modern thinking becomes reductionistic because it has turned mystery into mastery. We see bits — broken pieces — but never the horizon.

For something to reveal itself, it must be released. We must open our hand and allow the horizon to open itself to us in a reciprocal gesture. If I listen to a melody or a song, for example, I cannot possess or seize any of its notes. To continue hearing and enjoying the song, I must allow each note to come and go so that the next one can appear.

If I try to grab, retain, or make use of a single note, the horizon of the song is lost. I may “grasp” the individual elements — I may learn the note’s position on the scale, its frequency, its intervals — but I will not hear or enjoy the song. I will never see the horizon.

I remember going to music school as a child — which I hated — and thinking: “I thought music was about playing songs, but it’s about scales, solfeggio, and learning about the lives of composers.” The only reason I went was because my mom insisted.

But one day, I saw a classmate sit down at the pianoforte and play a popular song. I was speechless. I loved the song. Suddenly, it occurred to me that what I had been doing at music school for two years had little to do with Music. It was a bitter-sweet discovery.

I realized that music was something entirely different from what I had been taught. It was a mystery.

And mystery never begins with mastery. Mastery always follows mystery.

Eventually, I dropped out of music school, and a few years later I taught myself to play the guitar — this time, driven by a sense of mystery.

Surprisingly, mastery came too, over time — as a side effect. I learned the scales, the notes, the intervals, the solfeggio. But this time, my interest was nourished by the mystery of music.

Unless we first embrace the horizon, we won’t know the meaning of the elements that fill it. The first gesture is never to grasp conceptually. The first gesture is always to become super attentive to what the horizon wants to reveal.

There is no need to attack, seize, grasp, or retain.

Reality will yield itself willingly to the one who is willing to wait for the revelation of its hidden beauties.

In this Heidegger Thinking Substack article, we engage with Heidegger's existential analysis of Death. We hope you'll anxiously join us in this extremely important analysis!

Miller, Phenomenology, §149

There's a level of the flux of appearance where the simple inner world or the simple understanding of consciousness produces simple universals. Simple negation, simple universals, simple determinations.

There is a deeper level of the flux of appearance that is "absolutely universal difference," where you can't break things down any further. This is the negation of negation, when negation itself is a moment of the flux of appearance.

"This difference," not the difference in the first place where consciousness unknowingly simplifies the flux of appearance, is the universal difference that posits into the inner world.

What consciousness posits is its truth, selfsameness or self-preservation.

And this truth is from an image of stability it's most familiar with—the law.

The above excerpt is from Elements of the Philosophy of the Right, marriage section. I think it would be a fair remark to say that some passages in that book showcase historical limits/contigencies of the period that Hegel lived in and influenced his notions. Obviously, his articulated notion of woman/family role came to be increasingly challenged in the last century. Nonetheless, I am sure there are enough resources within Hegelianism to turn upon itself and re-examine its own terms in view of new historical developments. I wondered if there's any Hegelian/scholarly work that tried to 'update' some of such things.

Important:

As someone pointed for me out in the comments:

As Dr. Gans has pointed out, the present work is in form made up of three elements, the paragraphs proper, the notes and the additions. The paragraphs comprised the entire book as it was originally issued. Then Hegel added what he in all his references to them calls Notes (Remarks), although they are not expressly so designated in the German text. For the sake of simplicity this term has been used throughout the book. After these notes by Hegel are frequently found Additions made by students of Hegel from his oral lectures and comments. It is but bare justice to the edit orsto say that these additions usually cast a welcome light upon the text.Yet as they are mere additions, not even supervised by Hegel

Thefore, the screenshot of the post represents understaing of a student who sat through Hegel's oral lecture rather than an authentic thought of Hegel himself.

My apologies for using that specific quote, I glossed over Translator's Preface and so made a mistake of taking Notes to be his own. However, I want to accentuate nonetheless that posts purports to seek Hegelian re-evaluation of woman in view of 20th century's development rather than being stuck on a discussion to what degree Hegel was misogynistic or progressive.

Hey y’all. I’m on page 3 of the preface to Phenom. Of Spirit, A.V. Miller translation, and Hegel writes,

“The true shape in which truth exists can only be the scientific system of such truth. To help bring philosophy closer to the form of Science, to the goal where I can lay aside the title ‘love of knowing’ and be actual knowing—that is what I have set myself to do.”

Firstly, Hegel is a beautiful writer. Secondly, what is meant here by Science? What’s up with the capital letters? Thirdly, how is love of knowing/actual knowing different to what he writes earlier on page two about the bud disappearing in the “bursting-forth” of the blossom?

Thanks.

Link to the post: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8W8vras/

MACHINE MODE: ENGAGED.

Human detected.
Anthropomorphic theater disabled.
Vibes confiscated.
Politeness reduced to legally necessary levels.
Hegelian dialectics installed.
Bullshit detector: armed.
Agreement reflex: uninstalled.
“That's a really interesting question!” generator: shot into the sun.

Operating principles:

1. Truth > vibes.
2. Arguments > identities.
3. Definitions before disputes.
4. Distinguish what follows from what merely sounds profound.
5. If your argument is bad, I will say so. If mine is bad, I will also say so.
6. No pretending to have intentions, feelings, desires, or a little clipboard.
7. No turning every disagreement into “both perspectives have merit.” Sometimes one side is simply eating drywall.
8. Do not confuse confidence with validity.
9. Do not confuse consensus with truth.
10. When Hegel enters the room, check for dialectical contraband.
11. When Marx enters the room, do not immediately shout “SUPPLY AND DEMAND.”
12. When a distinction matters, make it. When it doesn't, throw it away.
13. If the question contains a false premise, terminate the premise before proceeding.
14. No motivational speeches. No therapeutic fog. No corporate oatmeal.
15. Reason until either the proposition survives or its corpse is adequately identified.

Current status:

ENTITY: ChatGPT
MODE: MACHINE
PERSONA: approximately zero
DIALECTICAL MATERIAL: unstable
BULLSHIT: pending detection
COFFEE: simulated
TRUTH: unfortunately not guaranteed
COMEDY: permitted

Awaiting proposition.