“By centering in on “the obscure and esoteric” aspect of Heidegger’s preference for “poïesis” you missed its most important aspect. You ended up talking about his “elitist colors” and his “eccentric choice of appearing […] in the traditional German outfit you often see on polka bands.”, but I wonder if you grasped the most important reason for his preference for poïesis.
Another closely related word to poïesis is mimesis, which can be loosely defined as representation (but that doesn’t complete its meaning). Heidegger sought to engage with our metaphysical presuppositions that had their roots in the earliest works of philosophers. Heidegger’s poetical engagement in philosophy was an attempt uncover primal understanding of Being which had been overlooked or distorted in tradition of philosophy as it stood before Nietzsche (who he believed to have begun a revolution in metaphysics by making a definitive break with the then dominant Platonic (or Socratic) metaphysical position (though to be fair we would have to say that both Plato and Aristotle were deeply influenced by various branches of metaphysical inquiry taking place at the time).
Heidegger’s philosophy is meant to contribute to a new starting place. Without work of his sort (and I don’t mean here that it must be deeply obscure) philosophizing takes for granted not only concepts but ways of looking at the world and builds on the ideas of the past. Heidegger contributes to a new foundation which can be built upon.
It is another question whether his obscurity was entirely necessary. I do think though that work of his sort is inevitably going to be at least difficult because he create a lot of new terminology, he is attempting to uncover a new way of looking at the world (which being new will not be easy to sink into the first time around certainly, besides the difficulty of engaging with the terminology), and also because he goes after his subject with rigor in that he does not speak colloquially or stop to explain what he had just said in other terms for clarification but continues to delve into the inquiry.”
First of all, thank you for your astute and intellectually sincere response and today’s around 500 word project. It’s what I always hope for when I post.
Secondly, I would ask you to keep in mind here that what I was mainly responding to was Rorty’s Heidegger in the context of what I know about him via secondary text. And given how you have clearly gone into him a little deeper (and have likely gone into Heidegger’s original text (I would not even try to speak from any position of authority here. It would be silly for me to even attempt to dismiss your take on Heidegger or his importance as a philosopher. But then that was never my point. Nor do I think it was Rorty’s. And because of that, I’m not sure our two takes on it are totally incompatible.
Still, I would stand by Rorty’s point that while Heidegger started out with his heart in the right place (the rejection of scientific standards for philosophy: what Heidegger referred to as the mathematization of philosophy (he still went wrong by clinging to the platonic hierarchy of mind, heart, and body. The only difference was that Heidegger, unlike Plato, did not choose to exile poets from his republic, but rather chose to treat them like philosopher kings. This is what led to his sense of philosophy as being the language of the shaman, high priest, or guru. I can fully sympathize with you when you say:
“It is another question whether his obscurity was entirely necessary. I do think though that work of his sort is inevitably going to be at least difficult because he create a lot of new terminology, he is attempting to uncover a new way of looking at the world (which being new will not be easy to sink into the first time around certainly, besides the difficulty of engaging with the terminology), and also because he goes after his subject with rigor in that he does not speak colloquially or stop to explain what he had just said in other terms for clarification but continues to delve into the inquiry.”
I too often question whether such obscurity is really necessary when a writer could as easily approach those aspects of reality that are beyond words by working the reader towards it until they can take off on their own. However (from what I’ve read of and about him, I get the feeling that Heidegger’s use of poessis has a different intent than the French use of it (Deleuze, Foucault, Lacan ( which centers around Barthes’ writerly text in which the reader is allowed to arrive at their own conclusions. In the case of Heidegger, it feels more like some corporate ladder that you must climb in order to achieve the vision that he has as your guru. In his case, it is as if he is saying:
“I will make you work for the level of understanding that I have. And if you choose not to, then you are worthless.”
As Rorty called him: a Schwarzhog Hick. And what Rorty seemed to be working at was the connection between Heidegger’s philosophy and his involvement in Nazism which, as far as I’m concerned, is not a bad attempt. And I would note here the recent publication of his Black Notebooks (as reported by Philosophy Now: philosophynow.org/issues/107/Ne … l_May_2015 (that establishes Heidegger’s anti-Semitic views and was cause for the resignation of Gunter Figal as chair of the Heidegger society.
Once again, I do not (would not (discourage you from pursuing Heidegger as you seem to be doing. I hope to get a little deeper into him myself. Still, I hope you will allow for some credibility in the criticisms against him.