Comments on: Trumpery, Heidegger and Derrida

By: Michael Dorfman

Michael Dorfman — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 14:06:19 +0000

It’s particularly ironic that a phrase about the (critical) importance of context would be taken so often out of context– precisely as “iteration” permits, but ironic nonetheless, as it shows the failure of the one quoting to heed the ethical call….

By: Clark

Clark — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 16:06:52 +0000

Good point. One I should have brought up although that gets even more complex. Clearly the text, for Derrida, isn’t something determinate. (Once again this is a place where I think reading Derrida in terms of semiotics is helpful – it’s all signs and signs are ambiguous in key ways)

By: Michael Dorfman

Michael Dorfman — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 14:04:10 +0000

Harman:: But Derrida does reduce the world to a text. That’s the source from which he draw his strengths no less than his weaknesses, and Derrideans shouldn’t be so quick to saw off the limb on which Derrida himself is sitting. If Harman thinks that Derrida's maneuver is in any way a reduction, he really has no idea which limb Derrida is sitting upon.

By: Clark

Clark — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 06:19:24 +0000

Well you’ve probably read considerably more than I. There’s probably about six books I’ve read a lot due to my interests, probably about that many again I’ve read, and probably about the same I’ve skimmed. The rest I just haven’t read although in some cases I probably should. This is why I’m an amateur rather than a PhD candidate…

By: Enowning

Enowning — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 06:14:58 +0000

I find lots of annoying bits, that I skip over. With over 100 volumes of raw material, it pays to be selective.

By: Clark

Clark — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 06:01:21 +0000

Well I think one can be anti-technology without being a luddite. Like you I don’t see Heidegger’s formal philosophy entailing anti-technology but perhaps that’s just because I don’t have trouble picking and choosing. But when I read especially the later Heidegger there is an anti-technological tone that I think goes beyond the formal arguments and which can be annoying at times.

By: Enowning

Enowning — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 05:24:38 +0000

Heidegger may have been personally anti-technology, or more precisely, anti-technological change. He hated the typewriter, but loved his fountain pens.

Philosophically, one would first have to define one’s term – techne or technicity? – but I don’t understand Heidegger’s philosophy to be anti-technology.

I’d love to hear Harman debate Sheehan about this.