PHI 408 Existentialism

Second written assignment.

Due  October 5, 2017

“Nietzsche’s and Heidegger’s Return to the Greeks”

I. This written assignment provides you with the opportunity to think again about the themes and the contents of the first assignment in a broader context and to revise and deepen your thinking about your first assignment in the context of (embedded within) the second written assignment.

In this second assignment I would like you to reflect on the nature (addressing general spirit and as well as detail) of Nietzsche’s and Heidegger’s respective returns to the Greeks. With respect to the “return” to "the Greeks," select details and passages from the respective texts to make your point. For example, you could refer to the return to myth generally, and to the specific figures treated by Nietzsche: Dionysos and Apollo. Also consider the status of the chorus, music and the will. With Heidegger consider the Temple, tragedy, and a number of Greek terms, as examples.

Organization of the assignment:

Following the introduction, in the first content section discuss the topic of the first paper, in the sense that you discuss (in the same paragraph) Nietzsche's "return" to "the Greeks" as well as the purpose of that return. In the second content section of the paper discuss Heidegger's "return" to "the Greeks" as well as the stated purpose of Heidegger's return. Make cogent reference to the respective texts in each section.

In your conclusion summarize your findings and then reflect on the significance of this motif for phenomenology and existentialism.

[Selected passages for guidance and possible use in your paper]

Nietzsche:
“Enchantment is the precondition of all dramatic art. In this enchantment the Dionysiac reveler sees himself as a satyr, and as satyr, in turn, he sees the god…” (56)

"Such magic transformation is the presupposition of all dramatic art. ....the Dionysian reveler sees himself as a satyr, and as satyr, in turn, he sees the god…” (64).

“Thus we have come to interpret Greek tragedy as a Dionysiac chorus which again and again discharges itself in Apollonian images…” (56)

"...we understand Greek tragedy as the Dionysian chorus which ever anew discharges itself in an Apollinian world of images" (64-65).

“…the chorus of Greek tragedy, symbol of an entire multitude agitated by Dionysos…” (57)

"the chorus of the Greek tragedy, the symbol of the whole exited Dionysian throng..."(65)

“Original tragedy is only chorus and not drama at all.” (58)

"...originally tragedy was only "chorus" and not yet "drama" (66).

“It is an unimpeachable tradition that in its earliest form Greek tragedy records only the suffering of Dionysos, and that he was the only actor.” (65)

"...Greek tragedy in its earliest form had for its sole theme the sufferings of Dionysus and that for a long time the only stage hero was Dionysus himself" (73).

“…we can’t help feeling that the dawn of a new tragic age is for the German spirit only a return to itself, a blessed recovery of its true identity.” (121)

"...we have the feeling that the birth of a tragic age simply means a return to itself of the German spirit, a blessed self-rediscovery..." (121).

“No one shall wither our faith in the imminent rebirth of Greek antiquity….” (123)

"Let no one try to blight our faith in a yet-impending rebirth of Hellenic antiquity; for this alone gives us hope for a renovation and purification of the German spirit through the fire-magic of music" (123).

“Let no one believe that the German spirit has irrevocably lost its Dionysiac home so long as those bird voices can clearly be heard telling of that home. One day the knight will awaken in all the morning freshness of his long sleep. He will slay dragons, destroy the cunning dwarfs, rouse Brünnhilde, and not even Wotan’s spear will be able to bar his way. (144)

"Let no one believe that the German spirit has forever lost its mythical home when it can still understand so plainly the voices of the birds that tell of that home. Some day it will find itself awake in all the morning freshness following a tremendous sleep: they its shall slay dragons, destroy vicious dwarfs, wake Brünnhilde, and even Wotan's spear will not be able to stop its course!" (142)

Heidegger:

“It is by these determinations, however, that the interpretation of the thingness of the thing is established which henceforth becomes standard, and the Western interpretation of the Being of beings stabilized. The process begins with the appropriation of Greek words by Roman-Latin thought… this translation of Greek names into Latin is in no way the innocent process it is considered to this day. Beneath the seemingly literal and thus faithful translations there is concealed, rather, a translation of Greek experience into a different way of thinking. Roman thought takes over the Greek words without a corresponding, equally original experience of what they say, without the Greek word. The rootlessness of Western thought begins with this translation.” (149)

“…let us … select a work that cannot be ranked as representational art.
            A building, a Greek temple, portrays nothing. The building encloses the figure of the god, and in this concealment lets it stand out into the holy precinct through the holy portico….It is the temple-work that…gathers around itself the unity of those paths and relations in which…endurance and decline acquire the shape of destiny for human beings. The…world of this historical people.” (167)

“The temple work, standing there, opens up a world and at the same time sets this world back again on earth, which itself only thus emerges as native ground.” (168)

“In the tragedy nothing is staged or displayed theatrically, but the battle of the new gods against the old is being fought.” (168-169)

“Truth means the essence of the true. We think this essence in recollecting the Greek word aletheia, the unconcealment of beings…” (176)

“The essence of art is poetry. The essence of poetry, in turn, is the founding of truth. We understand founding here in a triple sense…bestowing, ….grounding, … beginning.” (199)

"Art as poetry is founding, in third sense of instigation of the strife of truth: founding as beginning." (201)

“ This foundation happened in the West for the first time in Greece.” (201)

"Whenever art happens-that is, whenever there is a beginning- a thrust enters history; history either begins or starts over again...History is the transporting of a people into its appointed task as entry into that people's endowment." (201-202).

"the origin...of a people's historical existence is art." (202)

"Are we in our existence historically at the origin?" (203).

Each section requires quotes from both Nietzsche and Heidegger on the two topics of discussion.

Your paper also needs an introduction that states the topic and delineates the parts.

Your paper must be typed and double spaced with conventional margins, and be approximately six pages in length.