#306

In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Robert Pippin about Heidegger’s philosophy in connection with German idealism. They discuss Heidegger’s ideas on the culmination of Western philosophy with Hegel, Heidegger’s emphasis on Being, meaningfulness of being, and present-at-hand and ready-to hand. They talk about the impact of Husserl on Heidegger and their different ideas concerning worldhood. They discuss Heidegger’s ideas on standing presence, unveiling and concealment, imagination and intuition, and the juxtaposition of Heidegger’s Dasein with Hegel’s Geist. They talk about Schelling’s ideas on nature, Hegel’s conceptual ideas, Heidegger as the first post-Hegelian European philosopher, poetic thinking, and many more topics.
Robert B. Pippin is the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought, the Department of Philosophy, and the College at the University of Chicago. He has been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship and was twice an Alexander von Humboldt fellow. He is a winner of the Mellon Distinguished Achievement Award in the Humanities and was recently a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a member of the American Philosophical Society. He is also a member of the German National Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of several books and articles on German idealism and later German philosophy, including his most recent book, The Culmination: Heidegger, German Idealism, and the Fate of Philosophy.
Website: voices.uchicago.edu/rbp1/

[@jakecarlo9950]

Always enjoy folks like your guest here who can convey the view of Heidegger from 10,000 feet. It is so helpful to have some basics and broad-stroke background, to commit the sin of simplifying, so that there is some tether to the stakes of the larger game as dude whisks your brain off for a wild ride.

[@a_seltzererwin]

I wish there was more discussion of Nietzsche, and I think the host wishes so too. How is Heidegger's essential point not just an elaborate articulation and expansion of Nietzsche's essential point of placing life before wisdom? Kierkegaard and some features of the Platonic dialogues are noted as important precursors, but Nietzsche is brushed over when every page he ever wrote seems to be just dripping in this existential rejoinder to the purely conceptual. And this is done by the great interpreter of Nietzsche, Pippin! Very strange. Did Pippin get so deep into Heidegger that he has started taking up Heidegger's silly disavowal of his greatest influence, Nietzsche? Sartre's admission that he was just re-wording Nietzsche is far more honest. So was Heidegger!

[@alp.9775]

Dr. Pippin had a real brain fart at 36:44, when he confused "Zuhanden" (ready-to-hand) and "Vorhanden" (presence-at-hand) and gave a confabulated etymology for the latter Heideggerian term ("vor" refers to the being-placed-"before" a subject, not to being "for" something in the sense of usability). A very odd moment, given his unquestionable scholarly pedigree (I refer to his work, with which I am familiar, not his degrees or status).

[@exlauslegale8534]

Shouldn't you, as Americans, be satisfied enough with Melville's definition of man as "money making animal"? How much more profound than Heidegger Melville was when he detected racism and capitalism as much greater dangers for humankind than technology (or technicity, as Simondon much more precisely names it) could ever be? That is because Melville was concerned for "being" as life, and not solely for "being" as humankind. How can you expect "deep philosophical thinking" from someone who proceeds with his lecturing as if nothing happened while from the window of his classroom he can still see and smell smoke rising from the ashes of a burned down synagogue that his party friends set alight the night before? Did it ever occur to you what would Nietzsche say if he ever read a line from this "posterboy for ad hominem argument"? How would Nietzsche, who likened himself to be a Polish aristocrat just to avoid to be a German, think of H.'s theories of Blut und Boden? And do I have to remind you how obsolete H.'s philosophy is with regard to poststructuralism of the 21st century? His "philosophy" that completely disregards the body? And if we should "return to that fork in the road where philosophy went astray" shouldn't it be precisely at the question "Hegel or Spinoza?"

[@Cornflakes-sr3nq]

By God you types are insufferable

[@galek75]

That's a lot of fake news you're babbling about, mister.

[@OuroboricIdealism]

The name “Fichte” is not pronounced “Feesh-tah”, it is pronounced “Fich-tah”. Imagine that you are about to say the English word “how” - the pronunciation of the “h” sound in the beginning of the English word “how” is similar to the pronunciation of the “ch” in “Fichte”. Imagine that you are about to say the English word “fix”; now, imagine that, instead of pronouncing the “x” sound at the end of the English word “fix”, you replace it with the “h” sound at the beginning of the English word “how” - next, add a “tah” sound (the “ah” in “tah” should sound like the “a” at the end of the English word “sofa”, or like the “ah” your dentist may have you pronounce when he says to you “Say ‘Ah’”); and now you have an appropriate pronunciation of the name “Fichte”.

[@stevenkammerer8002]

The “e” at the end of German words is not really an “ah” sound, it’s actually a straight, flat “e”. Like a final dull grunt.

[@stevenkammerer8002]

As in, take the “e” sound out “step” and put it at the end.

[@galek75]

Ok bro, you sound like you either just woke up or don't want to be recording your podcast. Can you talk more like a non-slob?