The Question of Being: A Reversal of Heidegger by Stanley Rosen

Welcome Everyone! This meetup series will follow on with many of the same themes as the meetup Scott and I just finished which was called "Heidegger vs. His Platonic Critics".

This will be a three hour meetup. During the first 2 hours we will be focusing on the book:

• The Question Of Being: A Reversal Of Heidegger (1993) by Stanley Rosen (Scroll to the bottom of the page for the reading schedule and materials 👇)

Please note that, although Stanley Rosen was a great philosopher (and great reader of other philosophers) he was writing at a time when very little of what Heidegger wrote had been published (in any language). Also, at the time Stanley Rosen was writing there was not much of a community of Heidegger scholars for Rosen to bounce his ideas off. Put another way, Rosen's interpretation is the interpretation of a brilliant interpreter working under some heavy limitations beyond his control. To compensate for this, we may occasionally read short essays which were written more recently.

The main reason we will be reading Rosen is NOT for his interpretation of Heidegger (although that is formidable and well worth our time in its own right) but rather because he proposes a post-Heideggerian Metaphysics. In other words, if Heidegger is advising us to overcome Western metaphysics, Rosen advises us to retrieve it (but in his own specific post-Heideggerian way). If Heidegger is advising us to try to retrieve (in our own time) a sort of Homeric, pre-Socratic way of thinking, Rosen is advising us to retrieve Plato and metaphysics (but in a way that engages with and avoids Heidegger's critique of metaphysics). Rosen has read Heidegger, he has absorbed Heidegger's lessons, he has considered Heidegger's proposal, and he is offering another non-Heideggerian way forward.

In many ways Rosen's post-Heideggerian way forward resembles that of Leo Strauss (Rosen's teacher). That may prompt some of you to ask "Why don't we just read Leo Strauss' writings on retrieving Plato instead of reading Rosen"? I considered doing exactly that, and may do so in the future. But in his writings Leo Strauss (it is claimed) reserved the right to hide his true views and engage in tricky forms of intellectual subterfuge. Whether or not that is true of Strauss, it is definitely not true of Rosen. So it seemed best to start with Rosen where we will be guaranteed to be getting a sincere, straightforward attempt to present a post-Heideggarian metaphysics.

The idea of engaging with the ancient Greeks and attempting to change modern culture by retrieving something from the ancient Greeks runs deep in German culture. I have a generally positive view towards the attempt to retrieve something from the Greeks and see this attempt as containing emancipatory potential, but I wanted to make sure the dark side of this retrieval was also represented in the meetup. This is why for our final hour we will be discussing this book, which is more of a history book than a philosophy book:

• Greeks, Romans, Germans: How the Nazis Usurped Europe's Classical Past (2016) by Johann Chapoutot and Richard R. Nybakken (Keep scrolling to the bottom of the page for the reading schedule and materials 👇)

With both books in this meetup I will be challenging myself! I will be (more or less) defending Heidegger's project of overcoming metaphysics against Rosen's criticisms and his alternative. And I will be trying to say there is something positive and emancipatory about some of the things we can retrieve from the ancient Greeks. But I picked two books that will make it challenging for me to maintain my position.

The format will be my usual "accelerated live read" format. What this means is that each participant will be expected to read roughly 15-20 pages in each book before each session. Each participant will have the option of picking a few paragraphs they especially want to focus on. We will then do a live read on the paragraphs that the participants found most interesting when they did the assigned reading.

People who have not done the reading are welcome to attend this meetup. However if you want to TALK during the meetup it is essential that you do the reading. We mean it! It is essential that the direction of the conversation be influenced only by people who have actually done the reading. You may think you are so brilliant and wonderful that you can come up with great points even if you do not do the reading. You probably are brilliant and wonderful – no argument there. But you still have to do the reading if you want to talk in this meetup. REALLY.

Please note that this is a "raise hands" meetup and has a highly structured format, not an anarchy-based one. This is partly for philosophical reasons: We want to discourage a simple-minded rapid fire "gotcha!" approach to philosophy. But our highly structured format is also for disability related reasons that Philip can explain if required.

Here is THE READING SCHEDULE:
(A pdf of the Rosen is available here and a pdf of the Chapoutot is here.)

• For the 1st session (November 10): Please read up to page xxiii in Rosen and up to page 13 in Chapoutot.
• For the 2nd session: Please read up to page 26 in Rosen and up to page 33 in Chapoutot.
• For the 3rd session: Please read up to page 45 in Rosen and up to page in 50 Chapoutot.

Further readings will be posted as we need them.

Also, please note that this meetup will almost certainly be followed by another on the same theme. As this meetup winds down (many months from now) I may ask the group what aspects of the theme of "German-inspired philosophy engages with Greek philosophy" people would like to explore. Hegel? Gadamer? Hannah Arendt? Levinas? Leo Strauss? Let me know!

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Further info about the book from the publisher:

In this book a distinguished philosopher enters into a debate with Heidegger in order to provide a justification of metaphysics. Stanley Rosen presents a fresh interpretation of metaphysics that opposes the traditional doctrines attacked by Heidegger, on the one hand, and by contemporary philosophers influenced by Heidegger, on the other. Rosen refutes Heidegger's claim that metaphysics (or what Heidegger calls "Platonism") is derived from the Aristotelian science of being as being. He argues instead that metaphysics is simply a commonsensical reflection on the nature of ordinary experience and on standards for living a better life. Rosen bases his theory of metaphysics on an understanding of Platonism as an investigation of both the soul and the Ideas, the two principal elements in what the dialogues refer to as "the whole." From this vantage point, says Rosen, it is impossible to view Platonism as an ontology or metaphysics of Being, a concept that Heidegger has made fashionable.

Rosen then analyzes the Heideggerian doctrine of the history of philosophy as Platonism, focusing on Heidegger's interpretations of Plato and Nietzsche, whom Heidegger viewed as the beginning and end of that history. He discusses how Heidegger distorted the ideas of these two thinkers and also considers how Aristotle, Kant, and Husserl contributed to the development of Heidegger's doctrine of metaphysics as Platonism. Rosen uses his critique of Heidegger to suggest the next step in philosophy: that technical precision and speculative metaphysics be unified in what he calls a "step downward into the rich air of everyday life."