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Before "approach[ing] the critique of Heidegger," one should first understand Heidegger.

That may seem rude, but it applies to critique of ideology, too: Before critiquing an ideology, one should understand it, obviously. It’s quite intersting how often a reader claims interest in Heidegger, but depends on secondary sources. Relative to _Being and Time_, that’s an instance of depending on “They-self” (or what “They” say), if not “idle chatter”: Let someone else save one from actually dwelling with his texts! It would be interesting to see Carlos L. justify his view in terms of Heidegger's sexts. (If you go to anything Richard Wolin says and find a correlate quote from Heidegger, it’s easy to show that Wolin doesn’t know what he’s talking about.)

Here is a useful link at my Facebook/Heidegger page: “Heidegger was not a nazi sympathizer. Must it be said again?”: https://tinyurl.com/2h2mssrr

Philosophy is not in crisis. That’s a tired theme from the middle of the 20th century. Moreover, using 19th century rhetoric was already maladaptive because there was a lively community of New Leftist thought which was even beyond the original Frankfurt School. The journal _Telos_ is exemplary of that.

Jürgen Habermas showed a post-Marxist venue for philosophy clearly. When I wrote my dissertation on Habermas (which he approved), he was already far beyond Marxism (see _Knowledge and Human Interests_ and “Reconstruction of Historical Materialism” in _Communication and the Evolution of Society_.) His 1981 _Theory of Communicataive Action_ is rigorously systemiatic in his post-Frankfurt School critique if Marxism. In the recent Cambridge Habermas Lexicon, Marx is merely a name in a long list of relevant names among Habermas’s post-Marxist interests: https://tinyurl.com/2e9e48ba

I’ve sought online to introduce readers to Habermas’s thinking, as well as to go my own way: “Habermas studies”: https://gedavis.com/jh/hs.html

Likewise with Heidegger, whom I understand very well, if I may say so: “Heidegger studies”: https://gedavis.com/mh/heid.html

Best wishes for developing into 21st century appreciations.

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founding

In my misspent youth I spent many hours reading periodical literature in the reading rooms and stacks of a university library. Some of the main journals I read (including going back into bound back issues) were Science and Society (today a subscriber!) Monthly Review (not, maybe I should?) Human Events (oppo research so to speak) The Liberty Bell (this was like watching a horror movie but this was local) and....Telos. I'm afraid I ended up thinking of this as the journal of the Infantile Hegelians, an inadvertently comical replay of the Young Hegelians.

As to Heidegger I'm afraid I tend to think first of his girl friend. That's not impressive.

So for reasons good and bad personally I would put reading Heidegger far down my TBR list, and likely to die first.

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Yeah, science is an intrinsic good. I'm a member of the AAAS and subscribe to Science.

Don't be afraid of finding the other to be infantile. You can still outgrow that (being "bad personally"), even though your youth somewhat failed to do so ("misspent").

One aspect of facile attitude is the avoidance of anxiety about one's lack of thoughtfulness—perhaps inability which is traceable to youth, now that you have thoughts of dying.

In fact, your life did great service through teaching. That is the prevailing point of Heidegger's thinking: that philosophy was always about teaching—teaching to BE well, to be WELL— rather than aspiring to science (which takes care of itself quite weill without the Kuhnians, for instance), because science SERVES the aspiring of of our lives, which teaching enables. Such enabling was the original calling of philosophy.

Be assured that you have lived well. You gardened so many flourishings.

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founding

As it happens recently bought a Rockhill book on Kindle (based on Midwestern Marx You Tube interview) and today added Neiman on your (partial) recommendation.

In my personal experience issues of rationality and materialism arise in matters of science, not just natural sciences, where (as some readers may not know?) there is a powerful anti-realist trend, starting with the perspective of an observer-created reality. But underlying the discourse in the social sciences and history I think we can find similar issues. I suppose that's because in one sense philosophy is about prescribing the grammar of meaningful discussion where the words end up embracing the reality rather than denying it.

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