Dugin notes, 4th Political Theory

I have my questions about his larger project, but his analyses of modernity and postmodernism are simply too good to ignore.

Birth of a Concept

1. Three Ideologies
   1. Liberalism: the individual is the normative subject (this includes both free market capitalism and the Democratic Party.  I am using “liberal” in a non-perjorative sense).
   2. Fascism: race or nation is normative subject
   3. Communism: Class
      The second and third options failed, leaving liberalism in charge.  Without any alternatives, liberalism is the norm.
   4. 4th political theory: Dasein is the acting subject.  We will explain more on this later.
2. Postmodernism
   1. Global Market Society
      1. Globalism
      2. Technology
   2. Kingdom of Antichrist
3. Heidegger and the Event
   1. The ancient greeks confused the nuances between pure being (Seyn) and a being (Seinende).
   2. Nihilism and the event
      1. The “Nothing” is the flip side of being and paradoxically reminds one of Being’s existence.
      2. Event: the sudden return of being.

Dasein as Actor

1. What is the nature of freedom?
   1. Classical Liberals defined freedom as “freedom from.”  There should be no ties on an individual’s will.  
      1. It is these individuals, acting alone but taken as a whole, who form the circle of liberal action.
      2. Lacking a telos by definition, liberalism is hard-pressed to explain what we have freedom for.
   2. All political theories have an acting subject.
2. Dasein as subject.
   1. Dasein is a way to overcome the subject-object duality.  It is inzwichen, the “between.”
3. Hidden Racisms
   1. Is “progress” racist? Maybe.  Progressive societies have an implicit judgment that other societies, who do not hold such views, are inferior.
   2. The only true human rights are those enshrined by global capitalism, democracy, individualism.
4. Ethnos: A community of language
   1. Racist societies, whether Nazis or American neo-liberals, reduce society to a concept like race, blood, market.
   2. A better reduction, if reduction it is, is language.
      1. Language allows for an “accommodating landscape” (Gumilev).  It is the matrix of a “Life-world” (Husserl).
      2. Ethnicities generate the criteria by which they are judged (Dugin 48).
   3. The village-state is an alternative to the metropolis.

Critique of the Monotonic Process

Liberal ideology is necessarily evolutionary.  The concept of progress takes one from barbarism to technologism and the more refined way of life of the markets.

Monotonic process: the idea of constant growth, accumulation, steady progress by only one specific indicator (60).  In other words, in a system only one value (x) grows.  Only one thing (or a small group of things) accumulates.  Applied to either machines or biological life, this is death.  

The Gift

In traditional societies surplus was always sacrificed or given away. Thus, festivals.

Nietzsche: if there is growth in life, the movement towards logos, then the balance of the nocturnal Dionysian world exists as well (65). 

Modern political options have all seen progress and time in a linear fashion.  Even more so, because of time there must naturally be progress. By contrast, Dugin suggests that

T1: Time is a social phenomenon with its structures arising from social paradigms (68).

By this he wants to safeguard the idea that there can be “interruptions” and reversals in the flow of time.  History does not simply teach the march of capitalism upon earth (borrowing and adapting Hegel’s phrase).

Nevertheless, and perhaps unaware, Dugin remains close to the linear view.  He does note that time is “historical” (70) and from that draws a very important, Heideggerian conclusion:  it cannot be objective.

Why not? The acting subject, the historical observer (whom we will call “Dasein,” but this is true also of the individual in liberalism) is finite.  He doesn’t have a god’s-eye view on history.

Of course, that’s not to say it can’t be real or reliable per the observer, but we don’t have the Enlightenment’s dream of a god’s-eye application of reason to reality.

Global Transition and its enemies

1. What is the New World Order?
   1. It is a “universalism of free market economics, political democracy, and the ideology of human rights” (71).
   2. From the American point of view: a strong imperial core with the periphery divided and fragmented.
      1. Creation of multilateral unipolarity.
      2. Promotion of accelerated globalism and swift de-sovereignisation of nation states in favor of a global United States.
   3. Global democracy is a self-generating virus (Stephen Mann).
2. The World Order from a non-American point of view

Conservatism and Postmodernity

Paradoxes of Freedom

1. Liberal freedom in action is the freedom to choose TV stations.
   1. If I am “free,” am I free to say no?  Can I say “no” to freedom?
   2. Liberalism cannot allow this, which means there is no alternative to it.
2. Df. conservatism = repudiation of the logic of history.  True conservatism means that history isn’t necessarily moving towards a moment of universal global markets.
   1. Fundamental Conservatism: Traditionalism (86ff).
      1. Opposes “time.”  Specifically, it does not accept the argument that progress is necessarily good.
   2. Status quo conservatism: liberal conservatism.
      1. It is liberal in that it says yes to modernity, “but at each stage it attempts to step on the breaks” (91).
   3. Left Wing Conservatism (Social Conservatism)
   4. Eurasianism: an umbrella of subordinate conservatisms
      1. There is no single historical process.  
      2. Every nation has its own historical model and moves in its own rhythm. 

Transformation of the Left in the twenty first century

1. The Leftist Philosophy in Crisis: three varieties
   1. Old Left: 
      1. Orthodox Marxists.
         1. Stuck in concepts anchored in the Industrial Revolution.  Really couldn’t adapt to hyper-technological ages.
         2. Fundamentally wrong about historical dialectic.
      2. Social Democracy: 
         1. Income tax, government in the private sector, free medicine; traditional “liberal” mores.
         2. Social Justice + Market expansion
   2. Left Nationalists
   3. New Left: anti-globalism, postmodern, post-human
      1. Utilized Marxist analysis of ideology as “false consciousness” to explain society, philosophy, economy.
      2. Bourgeois society is a result of superstructures.

Ontology of the Future

1. Three ecstasies of time (Heidegger).  Normally, we would say that the future “lacks the most being.”
   1. Immediacy (there is/there is not)
   2. Documentary (there was/there was not)
   3. Probabilistic (there will be/there will be not)
2. Perception and Being: Kant denied that by mere perception we have access to the thing-in-itself.
   1. Therefore, if the being of the present is put in doubt, then all three moments become ontologically unproveable.
   2. From the perspective of pure reason, the future is the phenomenon, and hence, it is (157). 
   3. Kant puts time nearer to the subject and space nearer to the object.
      1. Therefore, time is subject-ive.  
      2. It is the transcendental subject that installs time in the perception of the object.
   4. Time is like music (Husserl); the resonance lingers.
      1. The future is continuous in the present.
      2. The future is the tail-end of the present.
   5. Consciousness
      1. That which is beneath the level that the nature of time is perceived.
      2. In the present consciousness perceives itself and nothing else.
   6. Short circuit:  perception of pure being as the presence of the subjectivity of consciousness. Transcendental subjectivity (158).
      1. Causes all kinds of dualities to be born.
      2. The creation of time stops this trauma.
      3. “Intentionality and logical judgments are all rooted in this evasion of the perception of pain of the void whereby consciousness becomes aware of itself” (158).
         1. Pure presence of the same is unbearable.
         2. Time constitutes consciousness running from the unbearable confrontation with itself.
   7. Initial Conclusions
      1. Time precedes the object.
      2. The world is created by time (or time through God)
         1. Time’s manifestation is as self-aware subjectivity.
         2. The future is predefined by the structure of the subject.
      3. Organizing time: circular, traditional, material.
   8. Society and Time
      1. Every society is a separate act of consciousness in temporal and rational horizons.
         1. Every society has its own history.
         2. Thus, time is rooted in geography.
         3. Thus, globalization, in canceling out traditional differences, erases time.
            1. Therefore, with no time, the “short circuit would grow exponentially without the possibility of being dissipated.
            2. Cataclysm.

On Beginning to Read Philosophy Sources

This is a fly-over view of approaching philosophy.  It is overly simplistic.  On the other hand, it is a useful handout in seeing different philosophical movements.  The first part are basic texts that every educated Westerner must read.  The second are snapshots from the Russian sociologist Aleksandr Dugin.  I do not endorse Dugin’s larger projects, but he does a good job reading postmodern philosophy.

Key Texts

Plato.  I recommend the Great Dialogues translated by Rouse.  It gives you the Republic plus a few others.  Being is now an Idea. It is that which is placed before man.  Ideas are always across from man.  There is a “gap.” Man is always “before” (across) the ideas.  Thus Heidegger’s conclusion: man (being) is no longer in the world, but across from it.  Man is pre-sented before the world, which means Ideas have to be re-presented to him. Truth is now correspondence between Idea and Object.

Aristotle, Categories/Organon.  It’s a good intro to his metaphysics without getting bogged down.  And I would study Aristotle’s table of being in metaphysics.  It gives you the gist of it.

Augustine, Confessions.  Pay attention to chapters 8, 10-12.

Thomas Aquinas.  I don’t really know where you should start.  It’s too much of a cliche to just begin with the 5 Proofs, but that’s also probably the easiest place to start.

Descartes.  Meditations is a fairly straightforward read. Everything is is re-presented before the Subject.  Descartes calls these beings objects (115). A subject must have an object to stand before it

Locke.  At least read Book IV of his Human Understanding.  It’s actually funny in parts.

Berkeley.  Despite his apparently bizarre philosophy, he is a good writer.

Hume. Dialogues on Natural Religion.

Hegel.  This is a tough one.  I actually don’t think Philosophy of History is all that hard.  Spend some time with a good intro to Hegel and you will be alright.

Marx. Early Philosophical Writings.  Marx stays true to the metaphysical topography. He has a subject (society, class) and an object (matter, product, thing).  Marx correctly noted that Machenschaft created alienation. His solution is to use techne (objects) to overcome the alienation.

Nietzsche.  Most people like Zarathustra.  I was underwhelmed.  I liked Genealogy of Morals, though.

Heidegger.  Probably don’t start with Being and Time.  My personal favorite is the Harper Perennial edition of his Major Works, which gives you snippets from Being and Time, along with his better essays.

Postmodernism and Beyond (From Dugin, see above link)

Starting with Plato’s forms, philosophical man has had a leitmotif, often dual in structure, to explain reality.

 

 

Review: Martin Heidegger: Philosophy of Another Beginning

Heidegger was the most powerful non-analytic philosopher of the 20th century.  His language is both poetic and at times indecipherable. It takes a powerful thinker to interpret him and Aleksandr Dugin is such a man.  I am not endorsing Dugin’s larger project (though it is obviously superior to Western liberalism). Rather, Dugin more than anyone else understood Heidegger’s own Dasein.

Thesis: Heidegger is the transition point between the last of the old philosophy (Greece to Germany) and the new way of thinking (Dugin 18). Heidegger’s narrative: something was, something began, something ended (31).  Europe is the evening land (Abendland): it is time to put “Being” to sleep (37).

What makes Dugin helpful is that he clearly outlines Heidegger’s “code.” The root of his thought is ontological differentiation (41).

Seiende: beings. 

Sein: Being

Noema: does not correspond to beings themselves, but to thoughts about beings.

These two form a dyad.  The formation of the verb is always related to its inflection, its linkage to something (elastic bending, 42).  Sein in its pure form is abstract. It doesn’t “bend” to anything. Man already implicitly assumes that beings (Seiende) are. If we reflect upon this, we ask “What is the being (Sein) of beings (Seiende)?  What is common to all beings that makes them beings?

Heidegger reads Heraclitus and Aristotle as saying that Logos = Being = Unity (49).  Heidegger wants to challenge the idea that Being is the foundation of beings. The Tradition, which Heidegger will ultimately attack, says “Being” is the common property of “beings.”

Fundamental Ontology

Ousia is a particular way to conceive of Being–share quality of all beings (54). If we say that Being is the essence of beings, we establish two parallel levels: the level of beings and the level of essence (ousia).

Main argument: if we differentiate Being and beings through essence, we overlook the difference between Being and beings (54).  Thus, Being is not beings. This logically leads to nihilism.

Ontics

Ontic dimension: that which is present to thought.  Thinking about the world. This is the topography of Phusis: the sphere of beings.  This is a collected concept.

Ontology

The distance that arises as ontics reflects upon itself.  Ontology identifies the Being of beings with the essence (ousia: shared class of) of beings.  It attributes Being as an attribute of beings, but also exalts Being to a higher level.  This is what Dugin calls the “double topography” (58).  Greek thought abstracted Being from beings when it should have leapt into the primordial foundation of beings.

Seyn: the kind of Being that eludes ontology and is not grasped by abstracting it from other beings, but rather penetrating to the Nothingness (59). Argument: in the doubled topography logos was severed from beings (63). When we say we  need to explore the nothing, we are not modern nihilists. We are going to beings’ primordial source (63). This is what generates beings but is not beings.

The Beginning and End of Western European Philosophy

The Greek take on Being leads to the oblivion of Being.

Being–beings-as-a-whole–is replaced by the notion (Vorstellung) of it.  This notion then becomes more disconnected and mechanical (92)

The Pre-Socratics took the obvious claim that “beings” are, but they then sought to find what was the “Being” of beings, and they interpreted this as phusis (99).  This means that Being now is. Now Being (Sein) precedes beings and is different from them.

Plato

Being is now an Idea. It is that which is placed before man (106).  That’s Dugin’s language and I don’t think it is the clearest. This is one of those times where German could be clear.  Ideas function in a gegenstand relationship with Man. That’s not all, though. Not only does man stand before Ideas, but Ideas stand before things of the world (107).

Maybe we can say it this way:  Ideas are always across from man.  There is a “gap.” Man is always “before” (across) the ideas.  Thus Heidegger’s conclusion: man (being) is no longer in the world, but across from it.  Man is pre-sented before the world, which means Ideas have to be re-presented to him. Truth is now correspondence between Idea and Object.

I’ll skip Heidegger’s section on Christianity.  For all of his genius, he is utterly incompetent on this point.  If all he had to say was that Thomas Aquinas helped with the oblivion of being, then fine.  But he didn’t understand Semitic thought, nor did he want to. Thus when Yahweh says “I am that I am,” Heidegger just thinks it means Being qua Being.

Descartes

Descartes adapted but never left Plato.  In Modernity instead of Plato’s Idea we have new “representations: the subject, apperception, energy, reality, the monad, etc.” (114). Descartes starts with the Subject.  This subject either is or inside the human mind.

Everything is is re-presented before the Subject.  Descartes calls these beings objects (115). A subject must have an object to stand before it. Modernity will then use Scientism to function as the subject.  This means that Scientism now controls the objects before it, which could be anything from plants to animals to humans.

The chart doesn’t make it clear, but the actual topography stops at Marxism.  I wrote “break” in the margin. Everything below the break is what pertains to the New Beginning.  What I’m interested in is the topography itself.  He shows how Western Philosophy took “Being” and made it into Ideas, Will, reason, Power, and finally techne, the reign of machine over man.

Metapolitics,

Heidegger’s true genius is his opening of political space. I don’t think his attack on “Being-Sein” will hold out, although he does make some valid criticisms of Marxism and Liberalism.

Heidegger uses “Planetarism” for what we call “globalism” (161).  He identifies this with America, or rather an extreme individualism and consumerism. For Heidegger Planetarism is nihilistic because it expresses only one thing: the triumph of techne, which obliterates Being.  Dugin argues that “Liberalism equates the Cartesian subject with the individual and pragmatic calculations in the area of countable tangible and intangible objects” (162).

Communism and Machenschaft

Marx stays true to the metaphysical topography. He has a subject (society, class) and an object (matter, product, thing).  Marx correctly noted that Machenschaft created alienation. His solution is to use techne (objects) to overcome the alienation.  He overcomes the alienation by means of what brought alienation (166)!

This explains why Heidegger identified with National Socialism.  He saw Being at its historical end. Liberalism and Communism were the last manifestation of the history of Being.  National Socialism, so he thought, was the only thing resisting these two. Therefore, the New Beginning would come.  Except it didn;t.

This next section is difficult, even from a Heideggerian perspective.  Heidegger’s argument is that Western metaphysics reached its nihilistic end.  I suppose that’s true. A new metaphysics is needed and this one must focus on Seyn-being (good being).  The only way to do this is what Heidegger calls “Das Geviert,” the four-fold. The only way to reach Geviert is through the Ereignis (the event) which calls for a radical decision, a leap into the abyss.

That’s the summary, anyway.  Let’s unpack it. When we experience Seyn, that is, when we choose to let beings spring up rather than abstracting them into an artificial genus, then we will see everything in a four-fold way: Sky (world), Earth, gods, and men.

Sky: this normally corresponds to Welt or world (totality). It is what cosmos was for the Greeks.  It is the principle of harmony. Heidegger strangely says these principles will be at war with each other, which is odd since sky is supposed to represent harmony.  I think by war he really means risk, the element of uncertainty. Sky is not an object. It is the world in its openness (200). It is an orientation.

Heidegger insists that world/sky is always connected with a Volk, a people.

Earth: the earth leads to presence. It makes sky real.

Gods: He doesn’t mean what we mean by gods.  He means something like the numinous. They can’t be gods like we think because that would put them back into the Platonic metaphysics of being.  The “gods” can’t have being. Well, what are they? I’m not sure. I’m not sure that Heidegger is sure, either. The only close parallel I can think of is “sacramental presence,” which of course Heidegger doesn’t accept.

Men: They are neither subjects of being nor objects, but only a dimension of being.

The four-fold forms a St Andrews Cross.  Seyn-being lives in between (Inzwischen).  Since Heidegger rejects the old metaphysics, it can’t be located in a place, but only between places (but isn’t this also a place?).  Another name for this “in-betweeness” is “Ereignis, the event. This is the single moment where Seyn is manifest. At the risk of sounding like the old metaphysics, let’s take what they call an object but which we will call the Thing (das Ding).  It is being in presence. The sky makes it what it is. The earth makes it present. The gods give it the holy. Man speaks it through language (231). Applied to objects in general this is incoherent. Applied to the Lord’s Supper it makes sense.

I’m not so sure this works as a whole metaphysics.  On the other hand, though, it does function as a cipher to view the current metaphysical chaos, which appears to lead to transhumanism.

Misplacing Geviert

The old metaphysics took the dimension of Sky and place the “Ideas” in it.  The Ideas then replaced sky (235). The earth has now been turned to matter. It is hule.  Man is now a rational animal. He no longer names things through poetry but rather mass produces them in a factory.

After Descartes man is now a subject who transforms everything else into an object (254). Everything, even God, is now an object.   This god “lost the attributes of a subject and became a mental abstraction,” which was soon discarded (255).

Gestell

Gestell is Heidegger’s word for the artificial framing of an object. It is “the essence of the world’s inauthentic concepts” (258).  Applied to the Sky-dimension, we no longer have ideas but satellites (261).

Simulacrum

This is an interesting postmodern concept. It is a copy without an original (see the idiocy of a Rorschach test).  On one hand it is meaningless and empty. On the other hand it represents an endless will to power (268).

The New Dasein

Dasein is not a what but a how. It is the “shock” you experience when you are awakened to a new idea (293). Heidegger wants Dasein to function as a way to overcome the subject-object duality.

Conclusion and Analysis

It’s easy to see why Amazon banned this book.  Dugin is too powerful a thinker for them to deal with.  That’s a shame, too, since this is one of the better books on Heidegger.  Aside from a few typos, this edition is quite nice.  It is well-bound and has a fine finish on the cover.

I question Heidegger’s larger project.  He wants a god who can never be. Literally.  His god that passes by does absolutely nothing.  To his credit I think he realized this.  He saw that National Socialism couldn’t bring about Geviert.

Here is the problem with his take on Christianity:  We do not say that God is a being among beings.  We say that God is beyond being.  Hyper-ousia.

Metaphysics as Geviert

This next section is difficult, even from a Heideggerian perspective.  Heidegger’s argument is that Western metaphysics reached its nihilistic end.  I suppose that’s true. A new metaphysics is needed and this one must focus on Seyn-being (good being).  The only way to do this is what Heidegger calls “Das Geviert,” the four-fold. The only way to reach Geviert is through the Ereignis (the event) which calls for a radical decision, a leap into the abyss.

That’s the summary, anyway.  Let’s unpack it. When we experience Seyn, that is, when we choose to let beings spring up rather than abstracting them into an artificial genus, then we will see everything in a four-fold way: Sky (world), Earth, gods, and men.  

Sky: this normally corresponds to Welt or world (totality). It is what cosmos was for the Greeks.  It is the principle of harmony. Heidegger strangely says these principles will be at war with each other, which is odd since sky is supposed to represent harmony.  I think by war he really means risk, the element of uncertainty. Sky is not an object. It is the world in its openness (200). It is an orientation.

Heidegger insists that world/sky is always connected with a Volk, a people.

Earth: the earth leads to presence. It makes sky real.

Gods: He doesn’t mean what we mean by gods.  He means something like the numinous. They can’t be gods like we think because that would put them back into the Platonic metaphysics of being.  The “gods” can’t have being. Well, what are they? I’m not sure. I’m not sure that Heidegger is sure, either. The only close parallel I can think of is “sacramental presence,” which of course Heidegger doesn’t accept.

Men: They are neither subjects of being nor objects, but only a dimension of being.

The four-fold forms a St Andrews Cross.  Seyn-being lives in between (Inzwischen).  Since Heidegger rejects the old metaphysics, it can’t be located in a place, but only between places (but isn’t this also a place?).  Another name for this “in-betweeness” is “Ereignis, the event. This is the single moment where Seyn is manifest. At the risk of sounding like the old metaphysics, let’s take what they call an object but which we will call the Thing (das Ding).  It is being in presence. The sky makes it what it is. The earth makes it present. The gods give it the holy. Man speaks it through language (231). Applied to objects in general this is incoherent. Applied to the Lord’s Supper it makes sense.

I’m not so sure this works as a whole metaphysics.  On the other hand, though, it does function as a cipher to view the current metaphysical chaos, which appears to lead to transhumanism.

Heidegger’s Topography of Being

From Dugin, Martin Heidegger: The Philosophy of Another Beginning, 78.

The chart doesn’t make it clear, but the actual topography stops at Marxism.  I wrote “break” in the margin. Everything below the break is what pertains to the New Beginning.  What I’m interested in is the topography itself.  He shows how Western Philosophy took “Being” and made it into Ideas, Will, reason, Power, and finally techne, the reign of machine over man.

Dugin’s Genealogy of Modernity

Earlier notes on Dugin

The Beginning and End of Western European Philosophy

The Greek take on Being leads to the oblivion of Being.

Being–beings-as-a-whole–is replaced by the notion (Vorstellung) of it.  This notion then becomes more disconnected and mechanical (92)

“Thought.”  Differentiation is the main attribute of thought.

The Pre-Socratics took the obvious claim that “beings” are, but they then sought to find what was the “Being” of beings, and they interpreted this as phusis (99).  This means that Being now is. Now Being (Sein) precedes beings and is different from them.

Plato

Being is now an Idea. It is that which is placed before man (106).  That’s Dugin’s language and I don’t think it is the clearest. This is one of those times where German could be clear.  Ideas function in a gegenstand relationship with Man. That’s not all, though. Not only does man stand before Ideas, but Ideas stand before things of the world (107).

Maybe we can say it this way:  Ideas are always across from man.  There is a “gap.” Man is always “before” (across) the ideas.  Thus Heidegger’s conclusion: man (being) is no longer in the world, but across from it.  Man is pre-sented before the world, which means Ideas have to be re-presented to him. Truth is now correspondence between Idea and Object.

I’ll skip Heidegger’s section on Christianity.  For all of his genius, he is utterly incompetent on this point.  If all he had to say was that Thomas Aquinas helped with the oblivion of being, then fine.  But he didn’t understand Semitic thought, nor did he want to. Thus when Yahweh says “I am that I am,” Heidegger just thinks it means Being qua Being.

Descartes

Descartes adapted but never left Plato.  In Modernity instead of Plato’s Idea we have new “representations: the subject, apperception, energy, reality, the monad, etc.” (114). Descartes starts with the Subject.  This subject either is or inside the human mind.

Everything is is re-presented before the Subject.  Descartes calls these beings objects (115). A subject must have an object to stand before it. Modernity will then use Scientism to function as the subject.  This means that Scientism now controls the objects before it, which could be anything from plants to animals to humans.

 

Heidegger: On the way to language

This book functions as a running commentary on Heidegger’s famous line: “Language is the house of being.”  It begins with a 50 page dialogue between himself and a Japanese student on the limits of language. Quite fascinating, actually. Heidegger talks about his studies with Husserl and how Being and Time was received.  It then examines some difficult (!) themes in Being and Time.

(It might help to read Dugin’s intro to Heidegger. He captures Heidegger’s philosophy of language far better than I can. http://www.4pt.su/en/content/encounter-heidegger-invitation-journey ).

Some notes from Dugin:

1. a) Heidegger wants to “clear” the field of language, to free it from any shackles that the older metaphysics might have placed on it.

The problem: language itself rests upon a metaphysical distinction between the sensuous and the suprasensuous.  There is sound and script and the signifier. How do the two relate? Heidegger offers tentative suggestions–nothing more–that words function more than simply signifiers.  They are hints. Maybe we need a word stronger than “hint.”

One of the problems with “the house of Being” is that the “being” of language isn’t itself linguistic (24).  Not yet, anyway. I think the Christian metaphysician has an angle on this: The Logos himself structures both being and language.

The two-fold of being.  This is “Being” and “beings.”

“Our thinking today is to think what the Greeks thought in an even more Greek manner” (39).  Is “to be present” the same thing as “appearance?” This is unconcealment, a clearing. Heidegger is trying to get beyond the subject-object duality into a manner of being that takes the objective back into the subjective.  So what could be that “object?” At this point Heidegger suggests the message. As Christians we could see echoes of the Word speaking to us.

Lagniappe

What does “Being” mean?  There is a difference between “the Being of beings” and “Being” as “Being.”  The latter means the “clearing” of Truth.  

Heidegger never intended “nothingness” to function as a cipher for nihilism (19).

When Heidegger spoke of “overcoming metaphysics,” he wasn’t intending to do away with metaphysics.  He simply wanted to place it within its own limits (Heidegger 20).

Experience refers the object back to the subject (36).

We aren’t speaking about language; we are speaking from language. This makes the speaking a dialogue.  Here we bring back the connection of hermeneutics, of the Messenger with the message. The messenger comes from the message (actually a very good explanation of the Christian kerygma).

The Nature of Language

To undergo an experience with language is to submit to the claims of that language (57).  We must rid ourselves of the habit of always hearing what we already understand.

The older streams of analytic philosophy sought to make a technical super-language.  Whether that’s feasible or not (it isn’t), knowing all the details about a language still leaves with one unknown: the very experiencing of the language.  Yet this raises another question: can language give you everything about that language? It seems it cannot. It seems language is always holding back something.  This is what gives rise to poetry: the poet seeks to point beyond himself.

Heidegger has some remarks on his earlier essay “Building, Dwelling, Thinking.”  To understand this–if we ever do–we need to know what Heidegger means by “nearness.”  The World–the totality of things–has four regions: earth, sky, mortals, and “divinities” (not really gods, close to Platonic forms, but Heidegger wouldn’t dare say that). The “nearness” is a movement that holds the four regions together (104ff).

Nearness is a refusal for things to be “locked in” at “calculated distances.”  What does that mean? The best way is to illustrate the ancient and medieval architecture that “moved with nature and landscapes” compared with the grisly horrors of Bauhaus architecture today. We are resisting the “reign of quantity,” to borrow a phrase from Rene Guenon.

Conclusion

The opening dialogue was fascinating.  His essay “The Nature of Language” made interesting suggestions, but as is often the case with Heidegger, one wasn’t sure what his overall point was.  His essay “Words” repeated a lot from “The Nature of Language.”  

 

Hegel: Philosophy of Right

Dugin gives a good summary of the general problem here.

Hegel and the Platonic Leap Down

Without endorsing Hegel’s whole project, much of this is very good.

Hegel gives primacy to constitutional monarchy, but wants a government that allows civic participation. Citizens should participate in government as part of a subset of the whole–not as individuals. Hegel calls these subsets “corporations.” I don’t know to what extent corporations in the mid-19th century resemble corporations today. But we can view it another way by calling them “estates,” which is exactly how medieval many participated in the monarchical order.

Hegel wants a constitutional monarchy, to which I have grave misgivings. I understand why, though. At that time in Europe, the old liturgical tradition had largely been eradicated. Institutions tended to reflect raw power. Hegel likely says monarchies as absolute monarchies and wanted to mute that tendency.

Most interesting, he sees the monarch–properly understood–as the concrete embodiment of a culture’s values. It’s also important to point out that Hegel did not mean by “state” what we mean by it, simply the bureaucratic apparatus that takes away liberty. He meant the combined culture and volk.

The Foundations of the Modern State

Monarchy as the Representative Individual: consistent with his earlier points, Hegel notes that there must be some way for the individual to retain his subjective right, yet at the same time freely and fully identify with the community (Staat). This happens by way of monarchy. Beneath the monarchy are Estates, who mediate the King to the people. Nowhere does Hegel mean representation according to our usage today. The King does not “represent” the will of the people, but through his kingly majesty allows the people to identify.

The French Revolution: Political Terror

Hegel defines it as “absolute, unlimited freedom.” Complete freedom means that outcome should be decided by me. Of course, since I am in society it is not decided by me alone. Therefore, complete freedom is decided by the strongest individual. This is the conclusion of indivdiualism ala Hobbes.

I think the reason is that if Hegel is right and one should view the Modern Narrative as a continuation of the French Revolution, then the only moral alternative is to reject said narrative. Hegel’s challenge to modernity: the modern ideology of equality and of total participation leads to a homogenization of society. This shakes men loose from their traditional communities but cannot replace them as a focus of identity” .

Translation: all natural societies organically flow from a unified belief system/ethnos (cf. Augustine, City of God, 19.4). Modernity is the negation of this. Without this unified system of belief, men cannot “connect” to one another. Thus, no real community. Thus, no real unity and society is held together by force (ala Hegel on Rome) and terror (ala Hegel on France).

Hegel’s conclusion is a rationalized monarchy. Hegel was a monarchist but he was not a traditionalist, and for that reason he was not a conservative. He agreed with the older conservatives that society must be founded on authority, estates, and a strong monarch; Hegel, however, based these spheres, not on divine right or tradition, but on reason. In this sense Hegel stands firmly in the Enlightenment.

According to Hegel France is utterly lost in terms of a political future. England is better, but she is not far behind in spiritual rot, for England (like America today) is run riot with an excess on particular rights. And in this chaos of individualism, special interest groups backed by powerful elites have taken control (like America today).

“The only force which could cure this would be a strong monarchy like those late medieval kings which forced through the barons the rights of the universal. But the English have crucially weakened their monarchy; it is powerless before Parliament which is the cockpit of private interests.

Charles Taylor continues to the conclusion,

Hence the vehicle by which rational constitution could best be introduced and made real was a powerful modernizing monarchy…Hegel had hopes for the future based on the climate of his times. Germany had been shocked into reform by the Napoleonic conquest. It consisted of societies founded on law in which principles of rational Enlightenment had already gone some way and seemed bound to go further. It had a Protestant political culture and hence could achieve a rational constitution unlike the benighted peoples of Latin Europe, and it was not too far gone in rot like England. It held to the monarchical principle and the monarchs retained some real power unlike England, and yet the societies were law societies (454-455).

Hegel wanted man to participate in civic life, and I think he was able to avoid the two extremes of absolute monarchy and oligarchic Republicanism. While Hegel wanted man to participate in the civitas, he knew that man as an individual among (often wealthier and more powerful) individuals, could not participate in civic life. For example, if all that matters is “individualism,” then the strongest individual wins–and your claims are marginalized. This is more often a problem in Republics than in monarchies, for a monarch (or a Putin-like figure) can often block and shut down the “rich oligarchs.”

What Hegel opted to do was posit the Guild (he calls it “corporation.” I will not call it that because it connotes and denotes something different today). The Guild (or Guilds), which represents the workers and the individuals, can allow man to face “Big Business” and “Big Capital,” not as a mere individual, but as a group of workers.

This raises the problem of Unions today. Admittedly, I don’t like Unions. 9 times out of 10 they are merely fronts for the Democratic Party, agitators, etc. That is an unfortunate accident of the Guild System; I do not believe it is the essence of the Guild system. (For a perfect analysis of the above sentences, see the Simpsons Episode where Homer is elected “union president” and mistakenly thinks he is an organized crime boss.

 

 

Early notes on Dugin’s Heidegger

I don’t have the book any more, but these notes are a general outline of it.

Thesis: Heidegger is the transition point between the last of the old philosophy (Greece to Germany) and the new way of thinking (Dugin 18).

Heidegger’s narrative: something was, something began, something ended (31).  Europe is the evening land (Abendland): it is time to put “Being” to sleep (37).

Being and Beings

Differentiation (Ontologische Differenz)

The root of his thought is ontological differentiation (41).

Seiende: beings.

Sein: Being

Noema: does not correspond to beings themselves, but to thoughts about beings.

These two form a dyad.  The formation of the verb is always related to its inflection, its linkage to something (elastic bending, 42).  Sein in its pure form is abstract.  It doesn’t “bend” to anything.

Man already implicitly assumes that beings (Seiende) are. If we reflect upon this, we ask “What is the being (Sein) of beings (Seiende)?  What is common to all beings that makes them beings?

Heidegger reads Heraclitus and Aristotle as saying that Logos = Being = Unity (49).  Heidegger wants to challenge the idea that Being is the foundation of beings.

Fundamental Ontology

Ousia is a particular way to conceive of Being–share quality of all beings (54). If we say that Being is the essence of beings, we establish two parallel levels: the level of beings and the level of essence (ousia).

Main argument: if we differentiate Being and beings through essence, we overlook the difference between Being and beings (54).  Thus, Being is not beings.

Ontics

Ontic dimension: that which is present to thought.  Thinking about the world.

Physis: the sphere of beings.  This is a collected concept.

Ontology

The distance that arises as ontics reflects upon itself.  Ontology identifies the Being of beings with the essence of beings.  It attributes Being as an attribute of beings, but also exalts Being to a higher level.  This is what Dugin calls the “double topography” (58).  Greek thought abstracted Being from beings when it should have leapt into the primordial foundation of beings.

Seyn: the kind of Being that eludes ontology and is not grasped by abstracting it from other beings, but rather penetrating to the Nothingness (59).

Toward Fundamental Ontology

Ontology, now seeing Being as an abstract One, overwhelms all.  The One swallows the Many.

Das Seynsgechichtliche

Seyn is the breakthrough into the pure element (67).

Geschicte   sort of the pathway of History.  “Totality of individual abrupt leaps over the abyss” (69).

Seyn ist Zeit

This version of “time” has no independent object (nature) or subject (man).

The Beginning and End of Western European Philosophy

The Greek take on Being leads to the oblivion of Being.

Being–beings-as-a-whole–is replaced by the notion (Vorstellung) of it.  This notion then becomes more disconnected and mechanical (92)

“Thought.”  Differentiation is the main attribute of thought.

Table Contents for Dugin’s Heidegger

I received Martin Heidegger: The Philosophy of Another Beginning by Alexandr Dugin in the mail.  One of the reasons I put off buying for so long is I had no clue what was in it.  I could not find anywhere on the internet (in English, anyway) the table of contents.  Now, for the first time in English anywhere, here it is:

Preface to English Edition                      |           3

Part 1 —Seyn und Sein                        13

I.  Meeting Heidegger: An invitation to a journey            | 15

II.  Being and Beings                                                                   | 41

III. Fundamental Ontology                                                        | 53

IV. Das Seynsgeschichtliche                                                      | 67

V. The beginning and end of Western European Philosophy   | 91

VI. Heidegger’s anthropology of Seynsgechichte                        | 127

VII. ANOTHER BEGINNING (DER ANDERE ANFANG)                 | 141

VIII: SEYNSGESCHICHTE AND POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES OF THE 20TH CENTURY | 159

IX. NOT YET                                                                                            | 177

X. HEIDEGGER AS A GREAT MILESTONE                                      | 185

PART 2: DAS GEVIERT                                                                  | 189

I. AN INTRODUCTION TO GEVIERT                                                  |191

II. GEVIERT AS A MAP OF THE BEGINNING AND A RETREAT FROM IT | 233

III. GEVIERT INTO ANOTHER BEGINNING                                       | 273

DASEIN                                                                                                    | 281

I. THREE STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT IN MARTIN HEIDEGGER’S PHILOSOPHY | 283

II. DASEIN AND THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY (FROM THE FIRST BEGINNING TO THE END OF PHILOSOPHY)                                                                             | 291

III.  DASEIN AND THE EXISTENTIALS                                                        | 313

IV. INAUTHENTIC REGIME OF DASEIN’S EXISTENCE                     | 345

V. AUTHENTIC DASEIN                                                                               | 363

VI.  ZEIT-TIME AND ITS HORIZONS                                                         | 379

CONCLUSION: HEIDEGGER AND THE STATE OF PHILOSOPHY           | 387

POSTCRIPT                                                                                                        | 393

GLOSSARY                                                                                                             | 395

BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                                                               | 425

INDEX                                                                                                                    | 447

ABOUT THE AUTHOR                                                                                         | 465