Introduction 1

Protocol: Tuesday 29 May
Author: Jabo


I.  Heidegger on Sophists and Socrates

• Sophists: means “the wise ones”, they presume themselves to be wise. As they already have ready-made answers, they claim to be wise enough to teach whatever it is you might want to know.

• The Sophists removed the astonishingness of the most astonishing thing by claiming that they hold the truth which is a false assumption.

• No one can every truly grasp the whole truth.

• Socrates: known for his method of asking questions. He believes that inquiry is the best way of [ar]riving at the truth. He tried to revive Hen Panta which the Sophists destroyed. To him, “education has nothing to do with filling a pail, rather it has everything to do with igniting a flame” (Heraclitus[?]):

• He affirms that knowledge is possible for everyone who makes the effort to realize it.
• You have to have skill[s] in asking questions so as to be able to [arrive] the truth (in a sense, this is how [p]hilosophy operates).

• Points: (1) Though there are no sophists around, sophism is still alive and can be represented by today’s science and technology, education, etc. (2) Truth is so much bigger than everything we have now because we are mere apes compared to goddesses who hold absolute knowledge [warning: mixed metaphors].

II. Assessing Heidegger’s Text

• From a technical point, his text is useless, but that is the point – not to give a conceptual definition o[f] Philosophy.
• He answered the question performatively: he wrote the text philosophically and the text initiated us [into] the act of philosophizing.
• We will never be able to inhabit the sophon again.

• What then is the point of [p]hilosophy? Strive for the sophon makes us more human.
• There is hope if we come back to a poetic understanding (artistic scientist and vice versa).

III. Marcel’s The Mystery of Being: Introduction

• Why was he hesitant about giving a Gifford lecture?

• He does not want to [] limit[] Philosophy [].

• According to him, [p]hilosophy cannot be reduced into [a few sentences].

• He is wary of the possibility that the audience may refer to his [thought] as “Marcelism”.

• He displays his resistance against establishing categories/labels because these do not, at all, fully represent the ideas that he wants to deliver.

• What made him continue?

• Marcel sees this as a duty to [p]hilosophy; an opportunity to engage other people [with] his ideas.
• He is inviting us to go along his unfinished system [This is not faithful to Marcel!]. He wants his audience to realize that philosophizing is a quest where one should not expect a polished outcome (unlike in scientific investigations where one already formulates a hypothesis at the beginning).

• General direction of his thought thus far:

• Image of a road that is open to objections of two sorts:

• Presupposes spatiality
• Presupposes a destination