I can read Heidegger but it helps if I approach his writing like a novel instead of something that should make sense. I love his 1967 essay “What is a Thing?” because in amongst the nonsense words there are phrases that deeply move me in the same way that Milton or Blake can make me feel a shifting of something deep.
“Decisions are not made by proverbs but only by work.
We decide to question, and in a very detailed and drawn
out way, which for centuries remains only a questioning.
Meanwhile, others can safely bring home their truths.”
I tried an analogue cut up technique on the text and found that moving the words around helped me understand them better. This moved on to become a Twitter bot and can be seen in action at @ThingynessBot
This bot is made possible by the very excellent Cheap Bots Done Quick.
My current code is below, it will be added to over time.
{
“origin”: [“What is a #object# such that it is like this?”, “Yet when we start to ascertain this thingness of a #object# we #we#.”, “What is the meaning of the #ofa1# of a #ofa2#?”, “But this is just what we do not mean #mean#.”, “There always remains the possibility that we only exchange subjective pictures of things with one another. #images#”, “We now set aside these #these#.”, “Are the essence of the thing and the essence of the proposition only built as mirror images? #images#”],
“object” : [“thing”, “stone”, “rose”, “bush”, “frog”, “falcon”, “hammer”, “watch”, “key”],
“ofa1” : [“presumptuousness”, “standard”, “thingness”, “preparation”, “form”, “truth”, “foundation”, “means”, “time span”, “interior”, “character”, “basis”, “object”, “truth”, “help”, “circumstances”, “simple truth”, “internal construction”, “presence”, “peculiar quiescence”, “help”, “warning”],
“ofa2” : [“single person”, “decision”, “thingness”, “#object#”, “thing”, “glowing disc”, “building”, “title”, “hundred years”, “physical body”, “pointing out”, “demonstration”, “different kind”, “scrap of paper”, “just observed burglary attempt”, “assertion”, “big bomber”, “happening of a kind”, “report”, “high-power line”],
“mean” : [“a special field or branch within philosophy in contrast to logic and ethics”, “a giant gas like formation that acts somewhere in hidden depths”, “the things around us”, “that we have already passed through it”, “only something temporal”, “many things”, “anything at all to us, so that we are only staggering around in a confusion”, “something more distant”, “speaking out”],
“these” : [“different interpretations of our relation to the things as well as the truth of this relation”, “things”, “implements and tools”, “things to the unconditioned”, “men”, “and those things”, “questions”, “two pine needles”, “and other related questions”, “questions by means of a title”, “different ones”, “difficulties”, “single things”, “tiny grains”],
“we”: [“alienate ourselves”, “want to pass beyond”, “pass over (uberspringen)”, “shall use the first hour”, “have unintentionally arrived at a suggestion”, “shall do well to remember”, “can fall into a well”, “may not reach ground for quite some time”, “talk about the fundamental questions of metaphysics”, “we do not mean a special field or branch within philosophy”, “also call it a thing”, “hesitate to call the number five a, thing”],
“images” : [“{img https://www.lisa-cole.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/vermeer2.jpg}”,
“{img https://www.lisa-cole.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Lisa-Cole-Birds-Eye-View-450x320mm-6-7-21-scaled.jpg}”,
“{img https://www.lisa-cole.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/pacman.jpg}”,
“{img https://www.lisa-cole.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/bouts-apple.jpg}”,
“{img https://www.lisa-cole.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/hammer-2.jpg}”,
“{img https://www.lisa-cole.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/ooo-generator.jpg}”,
“{img https://www.lisa-cole.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/mobius.jpg}”,
“{img https://www.lisa-cole.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/green-crochet-tetra.jpg}”,
“{img https://www.lisa-cole.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/hammer.jpg}”,
“{img https://www.lisa-cole.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/iodine-100x-no2.jpg}”,
“{img https://www.lisa-cole.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/heideggercutup.jpg}”,
“{img https://www.lisa-cole.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/figure-2.jpg}”]
}
Triple O is all around and objects exist in states of tension
Heidegger’s Hammer
The Tiny Art Gallery Manual
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