In building up his case that the coming into existence of ‘the god’ Kierkegaard reminds us that there was no advantage to understanding the god for those contemporary with him. Coming into existence is an event that is not accessible to immediate sense perception. This is true of all of ‘history.’ History is always that which comes into existence and as such becomes entirely inaccessible to immediate sense perception and enters the realm of belief. This feeble paraphrase from the Interlude in Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments reminded me that no one has ever had direct access to history as such. This is of course obvious but not often made visible or respected in historical discourses.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Coming Into Existence
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3 comments:
Hi IndeFaith. You guessed it, more relevant Agamben!: "“God or the good or the place does not take place, but is the taking-place of the entities, their innermost exteriority. . . . Evil, on the other hand, is the reduction of the taking-place of things to a fact like others, the forgetting of the transcendence inherent in the very taking-place of things" (Coming Community).
Regarding history, belief, of course we could think history differently, not as a past which is believed *in* (the past, after all, is precisely what does not exist) but as a relation to, a relation which is also always informing, the present. And this relation, obviously, always is sensory, embodied, material but of course not in any mere sense. Granted more intelligence and time I would launch at this point to an exhaustive analysis of the distinctions and relationships between being, thing, and fact. A recent talk on animals and language though does address these things from another angle. Cheers,
NM
Speaking of Coming Into Existence (Being) I wonder if you are aware of the marvellous book Coming Into Being by William Irwin Thompson?
Inspired genius---genius inspired by the total cultural history of Humankind rather than the usual Christian provincialism.
No, not familiar with the book or author . . . but I sure would like to be inspired "by the total cultural history of Humankind!" :)
Nicola, yes it seems Agamben always has something to say doesn't he. Hmmmm evil as just fact, interesting. I bought Language and Death but haven't cracked it yet.
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