En-own-ment

enowning Tuesday, August 08, 2006 Philosophy, it's not essentially about curiosity.

[I]t has long been known that the Greeks recognized thaumazein as the “beginning” of philosophy. But it is just as certain that we have taken this thaumazein to be obvious and ordinary, something that can be accomplished without difficulty and can even be clarified without further reflection. For the most part, the usual presentations of the origin of philosophy out of thaumazein result in the opinion that philosophy arises from curiosity. This is a weak and pitiful determination of origin, possible only where there has never been any reflection on what is supposed to be determined here in its origin. Indeed, we consider ourselves relieved of such reflection, precisely because we think that the derivation of philosophy out of curiosity also determines its essence. P.135-136 Brad Elliott Stone explores this in detail in a recently posted paper on his web site: Curiosity as the Thief of Wonder. ¶ 10:35 PM 0 comments

Monday, August 07, 2006 Here's an explanation of how the word enowning got started, from the Kisiel paper I referred to recently.

It was Albert Hofstadter who, in an article first published in 1976 in boundary 2, spliced together the makeshift English word “en-own-ment” as “the most literal possible translation” of Er-eig-nis. Ereignis as “event” optimally refers to the defining events of a unique and proper lifetime, like birth, marriage, and death, or to unique epoch-defining events of a people or culture, like the founding of Rome, the coming of Christ, and Muhammad’s hijrah. As the enowning Event that enables and enacts all uniquely defining historical events, “Er-eignis is originary history itself” (32/23). Most basically for Heidegger, enownment is the realm of intimate belonging-together of be-ing and human being (Da-sein) in core relationships like call-response and mutual need and usage that in historical enactment allow them mutually to come into their own; in the case of human Da-sein, to become its proper historical self. ¶ 5:55 PM 0 comments enowning@gmail.com