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Heidegger on Being Uncanny by Katherine Withy
Excellent Book
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
Hardcover
First published April 7, 2015
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December 12, 2017
Another one of those books that I can’t elaborately review here. Much of what I need to say about this will be worked out in my PhD-project. Let me just say that half this book is unhelpful. The first chapter that introduces one to the topic of uncanniness is redundant. The third and fourth chapters, focussing on interpreting the Antigone, are relevant but for the most part add very little to what has been said.
In so far as this book however starts addressing Dasein’s fundamental uncanniness, it must be the directive for Heideggerian philosophy to come. It’s the largest possible compliment I can give it, but this is also to say that I agree with her up to a certain point, and that we need to radicalize her ideas, such that we end up with mine. As such it is a silly compliment to make. Nonetheless, it obviously does show that I value the direction this book takes us in. Whether my opinion is in this sense worthy of note, I’ll leave it up to you. I’ve definitely heard people raving about this, so I’m sure Withy makes a dent in Heidegger-scholarship wether it really goes in ‘my’ direction or not.
To sum up what I make of the way she frames the question of Being: she over-emphasizes the idea of a ground, never questioning the grounded. That way, the grounding leap is a happening of man at the basis of entities. Concealment is therefore never something that corresponds to entities themselves, which are made or produced as intelligible by this leap. In other words, I disagree with Sheehan’s influence on the question. This is mostly because 1. producing is technological 2. entities remain gegen-stande. The view is metaphysical in the sense that it, despite calling the grounding concealment, must presuppose the ‘ständige Anwesenheit’ of Being (in absencing). Dasein is a hupokeimenon in so far as it exists as presence before all entities. That is precisely the right account of metaphysics, but not of the thinking of Being.
Also, she’s lucky she argues against linear narratives; her texts are certainly not structured linearly, and I wonder whether they’re structured at all. In need of editing.
In so far as this book however starts addressing Dasein’s fundamental uncanniness, it must be the directive for Heideggerian philosophy to come. It’s the largest possible compliment I can give it, but this is also to say that I agree with her up to a certain point, and that we need to radicalize her ideas, such that we end up with mine. As such it is a silly compliment to make. Nonetheless, it obviously does show that I value the direction this book takes us in. Whether my opinion is in this sense worthy of note, I’ll leave it up to you. I’ve definitely heard people raving about this, so I’m sure Withy makes a dent in Heidegger-scholarship wether it really goes in ‘my’ direction or not.
To sum up what I make of the way she frames the question of Being: she over-emphasizes the idea of a ground, never questioning the grounded. That way, the grounding leap is a happening of man at the basis of entities. Concealment is therefore never something that corresponds to entities themselves, which are made or produced as intelligible by this leap. In other words, I disagree with Sheehan’s influence on the question. This is mostly because 1. producing is technological 2. entities remain gegen-stande. The view is metaphysical in the sense that it, despite calling the grounding concealment, must presuppose the ‘ständige Anwesenheit’ of Being (in absencing). Dasein is a hupokeimenon in so far as it exists as presence before all entities. That is precisely the right account of metaphysics, but not of the thinking of Being.
Also, she’s lucky she argues against linear narratives; her texts are certainly not structured linearly, and I wonder whether they’re structured at all. In need of editing.
Displaying 1 of 1 review