Delia

           

            Thursday was my last Continental Philosophy lecture, though Professor Gibbs wasn’t there. One of the TAs, Keagan, who gave the second lecture, took the podium again for this one.

            Naama arrived about five minutes before the start of class. She’d missed the last two lectures, so I said, “Hi stranger!” She explained that one of her colleagues threw out his back. I added, “So you had to go look for it!” I said, “I thought you worked in an office.” She explained that she also works in a bar in Yorkville. I tried to imagine how someone could throw their back out in a bar and was thinking about working as a bar tender and bending over to get stuff from under the bar. She corrected me that she doesn’t work behind the bar but rather as a bouncer. This was not a surprise to me. I asked if she makes use of her Israeli military training as a bouncer. She said that she’d actually gotten her certification in Kradmaga after she was discharged from the army. I had to get her to spell that out for me. It’s Krav Maga, which is Hebrew for “contact combat”. It was created by a Hungarian Jew named Imi Lichtenfeld as a way of defending Jews against fascists in the Jewish quarter of Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in the 1930s.

            She said that Krav Maga contrasts with the French system, which is based on flight over through around and under obstacles rather than fighting.

            At this point Keagan began the lecture.

            In the analytic of dasein, some form of humanism is present. Dasein is not a measure of Being as ontic Being. Presence is not derived from a relationship with dasein. This is a hermeneutic demand. Hermeneutics is the art of interpretation.

            Derrida demonstrates lingering humanism. At the end of the essay he relates back to ends which are understood the double sense of telos (aim, end, goal, means) and death. Ends and means implies an inescapable circularity. Another reiteration of the role of death in Heidegger. In the cycle of ends and means, the tools outlast us. There are two ends that are not easily identifiable with one another.

            The source of meaning is like a horizon. Not an experience but rather a pervading of all experience.

            Deconstruction is a technical term that is maybe overused. It is a type of critique. Derrida came up with the word “deconstruction” as a less violent sounding translation of Heidegger’s “destruktion”. Ontotheology is a term from Kant revived by Heidegger when it was stated that the destruction of of ontotheology is required in the analytic of dasein.

            Can something be destroyed by talking? Deconstruction occurs in the text. The object of hermeneutics is a text that is always mediated by language. Dogma is being brought into question. Language is always mediating engagement with deconstruction. One can observe and then go out and analyze.

            Some will say that a text deconstructs itself. Derrida is not deconstruction Heidegger because the objection is already there. There is no new meaning.

            There are other forms of objection. In positivist argumentation a refutation argues with facts. Deconstruction is not a refutation. Heidegger is not being refuted or rendered invalid by Derrida. A dialectical negation preserves the truth of what appears false and rescues the truth. For instance, in Marx’s statement that religion is the opiate of the masses he is saying that the expression of religion is false and not its underlying truth.

            Deconstruction does not resolve contradiction. There is contradiction in appearance and phenomenon. Contradiction is resolved by negating the falsehood. Sublation – relève – aufhebung – lifting the grain so the mice can’t get at it. What is true is preserved. Deconstruction does not sublate.

            Are history dialectical, social institutions and even nature? The laws of nature can be contradicted. What if man is to be preserved? The ends of man are not to be understood temporally.

            What occurs in Derrida’s deconstruction of Heidegger is a questioning of value. Heidegger valorizes presence as the use and interpretation of language. The deconstruction opposes text interpreting things as text. Heidegger says that speaking is a presence different from writing. Valorization is a value for Derrida. The issues of 1968 were about values. Historical context is a question of authority. Meaning is not guaranteed. Authorized is belonging to the authors but spoken language is not necessarily from an author.

            Concluding is reassembling.

            A strategic bet is a wager and a risk in which the outcome is not guaranteed.

            In the metaphor of the terrain, discourse is a set of true conditions. Psychoanalysis is a discourse and empirical sciences are discourses. Discourses are analogous concepts with worlds. Worlds are self-contained sets of truth conditions. Terrain is discourse. We can tear down and rebuild discourse. There are limitations to staying on the same terrain after tearing it down because we could end up rebuilding the same thing. Discourse here is the essence of humanity. Using the stones of the house and taking them out f context can be used to destroy the architecture; the metaphysical structure of philosophy. We end up sublating and repeating with the new edifice. Jargon is professional vocabulary. A specialized building up of what we’ve destroyed.

            Nietzsche says that we need a change of style. Not a new discovery; not new content; not new methodology; but something different. Derrida developed a new style of writing.

            Zarathustra questions, dismisses, goes out and burns his text, erases his steps and then laughs. Derrida says that laughter is important for deconstruction because it engages discourse without nonsense. Laughter is a tear in the fold of world as text. Laughter disrupts continuity. Laughter is a question.

            Back to Heidegger, the meaning of Being is to ask about. Asking about pervades the act of making meaning and is not a separate enterprise.

            At this point Keagan declared that Zarathustra is the ubermensch. I had never heard anyone say that before and I don’t recall reading it in Thus Spake Zarathustra. In a way it made sense but I wasn’t sure.

            Derrida says that evening is neither the end of day or the beginning of night.

            That was the end of our last lecture.

            Naama said something about someone talking so much without saying anything. She wasn’t impressed with Keagan’s lecture. For me it was kind of sleepy. He hesitated a lot and so I had to really work to pay attention. I indicated his claim that Zarathustra is the Superman. She said that the Superman is not the superior man. I said that as I understand it the goal of man, according to Nietzsche is to be on top of man. Naama commented that she’d always thought the goal of man was to be on top of woman.

            We walked across the park together. I suggested that we get together for coffee on the day of the exam, after it’s over. She said that we could probably do that but further suggested that we could maybe get together before to compare study notes.

            I went home for a while. I took a siesta for an hour and a half and then headed back downtown for my appointment with Andrew Lesk. I wanted to talk to him about my essay and once I was in his office I asked what I needed to do to move myself up to 85%. He thought that I meant on that essay and declared that it wasn’t going to happen. I explained that I meant on future essays, but he said he didn’t know what to tell me. He said he’d gone over my paper with a fine-toothed comb and provided me with extensive notes. I told him I found it hard to grab onto something from all of his comments and asked if he could condense it down to two or three main points. He told me I hadn’t had a very strong thesis. I pointed out that normally if one submits one’s thesis to an instructor, the main thing they will point out is whether or not the thesis is strong. He said he wasn’t going to guide me towards a thesis and I argued that to simply say a thesis isn’t strong is not directing the thesis. We got nowhere. I told him I enjoyed his course and found that his selections, except for a couple of the graphic stories were great and showed a wide range of diversity. I suggested a couple of stories and told him that he should use the quote from Alice Munro that there is no novel that couldn’t have been better as a short story. He liked that. We shook hands and I left, feeling like it had been a totally wasted trip.

            That night I watched a low budget porn film entitled, “Delia Tops Zenith’s Boyfriend”. It was the first time I’d seen Delia outside of still photographs. She’s pretty hot.