The Memory of Thought: An Essay on Heidegger and Adorno

349 Pages·2002·15.51 MB·English

by  Alexander García

The Memory of Thought
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The Memory
of Thought
An Essay on Heidegger and Adorno
ALEXANDER GARCIA DUTTMANN
Translated by NICHOLAS WALKER
continuum
LONDON • NEW YORK
Continuum
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
370 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017-6503
www.continuumbooks.com
This English translation first published in 2002
English Translation © Continuum 2002
First published in German as
Das Gedachtnis des Denkens: Versuch iiber Heidegger und Adorno
© Suhrkamp Vcrlag 1991
Alexander Garcia Diittmann has asserted his right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work
Die Herausgabc dieses Werkes wurde aus Mittcln von INTER NATIONES,
Bonn gefordert
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0-8264-5900-5 HB
0-8264-5901-3 PB
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Garcia Diittmann, Alexander.
[Gedachtnis des Deiikcns. English]
The memory of thought : an essay on Heidegger and Adorno / Alexander
Garcia Dtittmann ; translated by Nicholas Walker.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8264-5900-5 - - ISBN 0-8264-5901-3 (pbk.)
1. Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976. 2. Adorno, Thcodor W., 1903-1969.
3. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) 4. Philosophy, German- -20th century.
I. Title.
B3279.H49 G28513 2002
193- -dc21 2001058296
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without prior permission in writing
from the publisher.
Typeset by Acorn Bookwork, Salisbury, Wiltshire
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
MPG Books Ltd, Bodmm, Cornwall
For Silvia Bovenschen
and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe
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Contents
Abbreviations ix
Introduction: Of (From) Germania - after (to) Auschwitz 1
PART I. GUILTS AND DEBTS 11
1 Fate and Sacrifice 13
Adorno's comparison — Guilt repeated — Recourse to Benjamin —
Bare life — Originary guilt of law — Omens, presentiments, signals —
The named head - Gift and oblivion - Rationality of cunning -
Equality as inequality — Sacrifice and the principle of equivalence —
Reconciliation postponed — Space and time — A rational overview —
Nietzsche's 'spirit of vengeance' — Sacrifice as appropriation — The
commanding name — Purifying rage — Dialectic of sacrifice, promise
of happiness — Similarity to the animal — Image — The 'minimal
meaninglessness' of language — Art and philosophy — Progress in the
realm of spirit — The caesura of remembrance — Holding course
2 Dialectics and the Ban on Images 70
Selfhood — Determinate negation — Particularity of Judaism —
Christian love — Negative dialectics — The origin of performative
contradiction — Dialectics without dialectic: the vertiginous
3 Constellation and De-constitution 88
The non-identical speaks — Movement and difference — Double
reading — Language as event — Undecidedness — The death of
intention — Enigma and solution, question and answer — Falling —
The cunning of the name — Stupidity of the subject — Too much
talk: fatefulness of enlightenment — Mimesis — Constructing the
totality - The new barbarism — Writing after Auschwitz — Jaspers on
the question of guilt - The crisis of spirit — A telling historical sign —
The question of guilt as an introduction to metaphysics — National
consciousness and guilt — Double bind — You shall never be
remembered
viii Contents
PART II. INAUGURATIONS 141
1 Counter-Turning of the Beginning 143
Storm — Beginning, greatness, stand — Imminence — Blindness of the
philosopher — Genius of forgetting — Poetry and thought — The
power and force of language, the truth of a people — Concepts and
political determination - The incalculable - The most dangerous of
gifts - On poetry: the over-poetic - What begins in and as language
— 'Aestheticisation of polities' or 'politicisation of aesthetics'? —
Having time — The 'Graeco-German mission' — Naming the name —
Original language and 'the final solution' — The word 'being' —
History and the multiplication of languages — Repetition
2 Rise and Downfall 184
Semblance of regression — Repudiation and celebration of destruction
— Simplifications: learning from a 'national catastrophe' — A delaying
pseudo-rational reasoning — Shock — Revolution and revolt —
Commemoration — Experience, lived sensation, reflection — Angel of
history — Political theology — De-cision — The thrust of thatness —
The essence of the work of art — Preserving and offering
3 Keeping to the Names 227
The saying of words — Originary historical transmission — 'The midst
of being' — Metaphysical neighbours — Dualism and duality — The
essence of historical existence — The legitimising power of the name
— Stability of sense — Given as endowment and given as task — The
names of Dionysos — A key figure — 'Dionysian messianism'? —
Remembrance: 'empty readiness for subjugation' or 'posture of
resistance?' — Meaning, naming, saying — The soul's hoard of images
— There is (need)
Afterword: The Reeling Philosopher 270
Notes 273
Bibliography 323
Index 333
A proper name is without meaning. But there are
many different ways of being without meaning.
Jacques Derrida