Heidegger on truth and myth: a rejection of postmodernism

145 Pages·2006·8.769 MB·English

by  Gordon, Rivca, Haim Gordon

Haim Gordon & Rivca Gordon
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T.hUT~ .JI"D mUT~
A Rejection of Postm odernism
PETER LANG
New York' Washington, D.C./Baltimor~ • Bern
Frankfurt am Main' Berlin' Brussels' Vienna' Oxford
PHENOMENOLOGY
& LITERATURE
Hans H. Rudnick
General Editor
Vol. 2
PETER LANG
New York· Washington, D.C./Baltimore • Bern
Frankfurt am Main· Berlin • Bmssels • Vienna· Oxtord
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gordon, Hayim.
Heidegger on truth and myth: a rejection of postmodernislll /
Haim Gordon, Rivca Gordon.
p. Clll. - (Phenomenology ,md IiterJrure; v. 2)
Includes bibliogrJphical rcicrences (p. ) and index.
1. Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976. 2. Plaro. 3. Truth. 1. Gordon, Rivca.
II. Title. III. Series: Phenomenology & Iitemrure; v. 2.
B3279.H49G592 193-dc22 2006004964
ISBN 0-8204-6904-1
ISSN 1524-0193
Bibliographic intormation published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek.
Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the "Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie"; detailed bibliographic data is available
on the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de/.
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Printed in Germany
for Ronit Kedem with Love
Contents
Introduction ...................................................................... 1
The Essence of Truth: Art and Myth ....................................... 15
2 The Essence of Truth ........................................................ 31
3 Plato's Doctrine of Truth: Emerging from the Allegoric Cave .......... .45
4 Plato's Allegory of the Cave: The Ideas ................................... 65
5 Parmenides: The Goddess, Aletheia ......................................... 83
6 Truth and Productive Seeing .................................................9 9
7 Truth and Wonder ............................................................ 117
8 The Essence of Truth and Becoming Free ................................ 131
,
Bibliography ................................................................. 137
Index ........................................................................... 139
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III/
Introduction
Maybe we still have time
to be and to be just.
Yesterday, truth died
a most untimely death,
and although everyone knows it,
they all go on pretending.
No one has sent it flowers,
It is dead now and no one weeps.
Pablo Nerudal
Martin Heidegger probably sensed that our era may be confronted with "a
most untimely death" of truth. Throughout his life, in many philosophical
writings he endeavored to counter this sad possibility. In some of these writ
ings Heidegger repeatedly sought to describe the essence of truth and to clar
ify its relation to the existence of the human entity, whom he termed: Dasein.
Probably, he believed that only by such a continual seeking for and clarifying
the essence of truth, we can avert the possibility that truth will die "a most
untimely death." He firmly believed, as we do, that the quest for truth and for
the essence of truth adds dignity and integrity to human existence. Put in
Heideggerian terms, unconcealing the essence of truth, and examining this
essence in philosophical discussion and also in daily life, is crucial for
Dasein and for humanity.
In seeking for the essence of truth, Heidegger read the writings of his
precursers and dedicated much thought to their ideas. However, it seems that
his major insight emerged when he turned to the writings of the philosophers
and the poets of ancient Greece, and especially Plato and the pre-Socratic
2 Haim Gordon and Rivca Gordon
philosophers. He probably spent many days and hours contemplating the pre
Socratic understanding of the essence of truth. The results are enlightening
in the sense that his thought often shed a much needed light on previously
darkened areas of human existence. Heidegger pointed to elements of wis
dom concerning the essence of truth that Greek poets, Plato, Aristotle, and
pre-Socratic philosophers presented. Much of this wisdom had not been dis
cussed in Western philosophy for two millennia and more.
In addition, in some of his writings, Heidegger struggled to fathom some
of the truths that are unconcealed in certain Greek myths, as they were pre
sented by Greek poets and philosophers. Heidegger did not define what he
meant by myths; he related to myths and to allegories in his writings. We
believe that Heidegger primarily directed his thinking to the attempts to un
conceal basic truths that may be found in myths and allegories. One of the
definitions of the term "myth" that is found in the Random House Dictionary
pretty well accords with Heidegger's manner of relating to myths. The defi
nition is: "a story or belief that attempts to express or explain a basic truth; an
allegory or parable."
The results of Heidegger's discussions of Greek myths are also enlight
ening; they often shed new light on the basic truths found in myths and alle
gories. At times, Heidegger suggested how the essence of truth is linked to
the unconcealment of truth as it can become unconcealed in a myth. He also
showed that the truths that were unconcealed by myths, as understood by the
great thinkers and poets of ancient Greece, had become obscure over the
ages. Often these truths were purposely concealed. Heidegger held that this
widely-embraced obscurity concerning the essence of truth and the signifi
cance of myths has led, and continues to lead, to ·scholarly shallowness, to
mediocrity, and even to stupidity.
This book will indicate that Heidegger's criticism concerning the flight
from the essence of truth into mediocrity and scholarly shallowness is still
valid today, more than seven decades after he wrote about it. Unfortunately,
such obscurity concerning the essence of truth, which is frequently linked to
a concealing of truth, is embraced and upheld by many of the so-called he
roes of postmodernism. In Chapter Seven, we bring a citation from a book by
Jacques Derrida that purports to discuss and deconstruct some of Heidegger's
texts. We believe that citation to be a most pertinent example in which a
postmodern writer purposely embraces obscurity and opaqueness concerning
truth.
Our survey of literature concerning the theme of this book reveals a sad
finding. Heidegger's continual seeking for truth, and the many fruitful and
inspiring insights that he presented in his quest for the essence of truth, have
Introduction 3
been quite ignored. Only rarely have we found a scholar who discussed Hei
degger's findings in depth, and with the involve~nent of his or her own per
sonal existence, which is what Heidegger requested. Nor have we found a
careful evaluation of the relevance of Heidegger's insights on the essence of
truth for our daily life.
This book follows a different path. In the following chapters, we show,
albeit briefly, with the help of examples from myth and art, that Heidegger's
understanding of the essence of truth has much relevance for human exis
tence. We also suggest how this essence of truth is linked to a free and wor
thy human existence.
One vivid example of the arid and shallow scholarly approach to Hei
degger's thinking on truth is David Dahlstrom's book Heidegger's Concept
of Truth.2 Dahlstrom seems to be attempting to deconstruct Heidegger's
thinking and, at the same time, trying to present a historical documentary
which lists every time that Heidegger mentioned the word "truth." The result
is a book in which some of Heidegger's arguments and a few of his insights
are presented quite accurately. But nothing of Heidegger's vision, or of the
spirit of his writings remains. Dahlstrom ignores the fact that, for Heidegger,
deconstructing texts and presenting philosophical arguments are secondary or
supplementary to thinking and to bringing forth worthy truths from hidden
ness. Dahlstrom makes the center of his book the deconstruction of texts that
Heidegger wrote and authorized for publication, together with a survey of
Heidegger's philosophical arguments. He ignores Heidegger's inspiring
metaphysical thinking and his insights concerning human existence and
Dasein's wondrous relationship to truth. In short, Dahlstrom's book forces
the reader to eat scholarly gravel-as we say in Hebrew. Need we add that
very little wisdom is attained when a person eats gravel?
The poverty of scholarship on Heidegger's enlightening insights con
cerning truth is also evident in a book of collected essays titled Heidegger
and the Quest for Truth. Despite its title, this book has only one essay that
deals, rather tangentially, with the question of truth and with Heidegger's
continual seeking for the implications for thinking that emerge with the es
sence of truth. This essay presents little of Heidegger's wise quest for truth
and the significant implications of this quest for thinking and for human exis
tence.)
Think about it. In the first half of the twentieth century, a major thinker,
Martin Heidegger, rediscovers elements of the essence of truth that were pre
sent in ancient Greek thinking, poetry, and life. After much study, he care
fully suggests why these elements were ignored for more thaR two millennia.
He also suggests why these elements of the essence of truth are crucial for
thinking and for a worthy human existence. But nothing happens. His find-
4 Haim Gordon and Rivca Gordon
ings are pretty much ignored by scholars and lay people. For more than half a
century, his rediscovery of significant ideas concerning the essence of truth
has had almost no impact on philosophical thinking. Nor has it had any im
pact on daily human life. Almost no scholars have attempted to comprehend
the implications for human existence of the essence of truth as Heidegger
grasped it. Are we living in an era, in which, as Neruda intimates, truth has
perished and no one seems to care?
This neglect of Heidegger's thinking on truth impoverishes contempo
rary thinking and life. To make matters worse, in our readings, we discovered
the widespread emergence of a more destructive approach to truth than the
mere ignoring of Heidegger's insights and thinking. The destructive ap
proach which has permeated much contemporary writing is called: postmod
ernism. Since this destructive approach developed after Heidegger's death,
we can only assume his response.
Our readings of postmodernism led us to slowly grasp that, by the very
definition of its approach, postmodern writing must ignore Heidegger's
thinking on the truth of beings and on the essence of truth. Indeed, many of
the writers who call themselves postmodern announce that their role is to
efface what Heidegger denotes "truth as truth" from human existence.
Look briefly at one of these postmodern writers, Jean-Frans:ois Lyotard,
author of The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge.4 We mention
Lyotard here because he helped make the term postmodernism acceptable
among scholars, and because his approach to knowledge and to wisdom is
diametrically opposed to that of Heidegger. Moreover, Lyotard, never
showed that he learned anything worthy' from Heidegger. In his writings,
Lyotard apparantiy never comprehended the possibility that he might learn
from Heidegger's ideas on the essence oftruth.
Instead of attempting to learn from the thought of Heidegger, Lyotard
wrote a book, Heidegger and "the jews" which, when dealing with Heideg
ger, is an exercise in deconstructing Heidegger's personal history and
choices.s For Lyotard, as for other postmodern writers, Heidegger is interest
ing because of the texts that he wrote. The thoughts, insights, and truths that
Heidegger presented are usually ignored. Lyotard's reasons for his approach
seem evident. Texts can be deconstructed and interpreted as one wishes,
while thoughts-that is a different story!
Lyotard's book is banal, at best. The reader of his Heidegger and "the
jews" meets a series of short, shallow, supercilious chapters, supposedly
about Heidegger and the Jews. Nothing wise is found in ti1ese pages. The
chapters mainly deal with Lyotard's philosophical or psychological associa
tions concerning Heidegger and the Jews. As we show in Chapter Two be~