Speaking Being - Werner Erhard, Martin Heidegger, and a New Possibility of Being Human

Speaking Being: Werner Erhard, Martin Heidegger, and a New Possibility of Being Human is an unprecedented study of the ideas and methods developed by the thinker Werner Erhard. In this book, those ideas and methods are revealed by presenting in full an innovative program he developed in the 1980s called The Forum--available in this book as a transcript of an actual course led by Erhard in San Francisco in December of 1989. Since its inception, Erhard's work has impacted the lives of millions of people throughout the world. Central to this study is a comparative analysis of Erhard's rhetorical project, The Forum, and the philosophical project of Martin Heidegger. Through this comparative analysis, the authors demonstrate how each thinker's work sometimes parallels and often illuminates the other.
 
The dialogue at work in The Forum functions to generate a language which speaks being. That is, The Forum is an instance of what the authors call ontological rhetoric: a technology of communicating what cannot be said in language. Nevertheless, what does get said allows those participating in the dialogue to discover previously unseen aspects of what it currently means to be human. As a primary outcome of such discovery, access to creating a new possibility of what it is to be human is made available.
 
The purpose of this book is to show how communication of the unspoken realm of language--speaking being--is actually accomplished in The Forum, and to demonstrate how Erhard did it in 1989. Through placing Erhard's language use next to Heidegger's thinking--presented in a series of "Sidebars" and "Intervals" alongside The Forum transcript--the authors have made two contributions. They have illuminated the work of two thinkers, who independently developed similar forms of ontological rhetoric while working from very different times and places. Hyde and Kopp have also for the first time made Erhard's extraordinary form of ontological rhetoric available for a wide range of audiences, from scholars at work within a variety of academic disciplines to anyone interested in exploring the possibility of being for human beings.
 
From the Afterword:
 
I regard Speaking Being as an enormously important contribution to understanding Heidegger and Erhard. The latter has received far too little serious academic attention, and this book begins to make up for that lack. Moreover, the book's analysis of Heidegger's thought is among the best that I have ever read. I commend this book to all readers without reservation.
 
Michael E. Zimmerman, Professor Emeritus, University of Colorado, Boulder

List of contents

About the Authors ix
 
Introduction 1
 
Day One: Session One 7
 
Talking about Being 8
 
Dasein 12
 
Two Theses 14
 
Ontological Dialogue 16
 
Being-in-the-World: Being-in 20
 
Mood 24
 
Interval: Hints: Ontological Distinctions 32
 
Day One: Session Two 34
 
Philosophy as Rhetorical Evocation 35
 
Getting It and Losing It 44
 
Authenticity 54
 
Interval: Dasein: Meaning and Mineness 58
 
Day One: Session Three 60
 
Interval: Yankelovich Study Results 62
 
Day One: Session Four 68
 
Concern 73
 
Already Always Listening 75
 
Interval: Jargon 78
 
Day One: Session Five 80
 
End of Day One Interval: Reflexion: The Cartesian Deficiency 86
 
Day Two: Session One 89
 
Being-in-the-World: Being-With 92
 
Giving and Reflexion 103
 
The They-Self 107
 
Interval: Hermeneutic Phenomenology 116
 
Day Two: Session Two 120
 
Thinking 121
 
Heidegger's Pedagogy 127
 
Solicitude of a Forum Leader 132
 
Interval: The Forgetting of Being, Part One of Eight: Getting and Losing 136
 
Day Two: Session Three 138
 
Social Moods 156
 
Thrownness 159
 
Day Two: Session Four 166
 
End of Day Two Interval: The Forgetting of Being, Part Two of Eight: Questioning 168
 
Day Three: Session One 171
 
In-Order-To 172
 
Awakening Attunements 185
 
Interval: The Forgetting of Being, Part Three of Eight: Heidegger's Etymologies 196
 
Day Three: Session Two 198
 
Danger: Attunements and Moods 200
 
Interval: The Forgetting of Being, Part Four of Eight: The Pre-Socratics 208
 
Day Three: Session Three 212
 
Choice 217
 
The Violence of Meaning 226
 
The Same 237
 
God 259
 
Interval: The Forgetting of Being, Part Five of Eight: Physis 264
 
Day Three: Session Four 268
 
Waiting for the Leap 284
 
A Violent Way 292
 
End of Day Three Interval: The Forgetting of Being, Part Six of Eight: Saying Nothing 308
 
Day Four: Session One 311
 
Being-in-the-World: World 312
 
The Uncanny 319
 
The Call of Conscience 332
 
What is Said When Conscience Calls? 342
 
Nothing: Beyond Nihilism 358
 
Interval: The Forgetting of Being, Part Seven of Eight: Logos 372
 
Day Four: Session Two 376
 
The Three Levels of Truth 377
 
Primordial Metaphor: Clearing 397
 
The Drift 409
 
"Way of Being" and the "Nature of Being for Human Beings" 418
 
Interval: The Forgetting of Being, Part Eight of Eight: The Heart of the Matter 448
 
Day Four: Session Three 450
 
A Substance Ontology 472
 
Event Ontology 479
 
Technology 484
 
Techne 492
 
Enframing 499
 
The Oblivion of Oblivion 510
 
Transformation as Technology 519
 
End of Day Four Interval: Technology of Transformation 530
 
Afterword 532
by Michael E. Zimmerman
 
References 543
 
Index 547

About the author

Bruce Hyde (PhD, University of Southern California, 1990) was a Professor of Communication Studies at St. Cloud State University until his death on October 13th, 2015 (1941-2015). His primary interests as an educator were with the ontological dimensions of language and communication, and with dialogue as a non-polarized and non-polarizing form of public discourse.
Drew Kopp (PhD, University of Arizona, 2009) is an Associate Professor of Writing Arts at Rowan University. His research interests focus on the theory and history of rhetorical pedagogies, and he has published articles in journals in the field of rhetoric and writing studies, including Rhetoric Review (2013), and JAC: Rhetoric, Writing, Culture, Politics (2012). He also contributed a chapter to the edited collection Disrupting Pedagogies in the Knowledge Society (2011).

Summary

Speaking Being: Werner Erhard, Martin Heidegger, and a New Possibility of Being Human is an unprecedented study of the ideas and methods developed by the thinker Werner Erhard. In this book, those ideas and methods are revealed by presenting in full an innovative program he developed in the 1980s called The Forum--available in this book as a transcript of an actual course led by Erhard in San Francisco in December of 1989. Since its inception, Erhard's work has impacted the lives of millions of people throughout the world. Central to this study is a comparative analysis of Erhard's rhetorical project, The Forum, and the philosophical project of Martin Heidegger. Through this comparative analysis, the authors demonstrate how each thinker's work sometimes parallels and often illuminates the other.

The dialogue at work in The Forum functions to generate a language which speaks being. That is, The Forum is an instance of what the authors call ontological rhetoric: a technology of communicating what cannot be said in language. Nevertheless, what does get said allows those participating in the dialogue to discover previously unseen aspects of what it currently means to be human. As a primary outcome of such discovery, access to creating a new possibility of what it is to be human is made available.

The purpose of this book is to show how communication of the unspoken realm of language--speaking being--is actually accomplished in The Forum, and to demonstrate how Erhard did it in 1989. Through placing Erhard's language use next to Heidegger's thinking--presented in a series of "Sidebars" and "Intervals" alongside The Forum transcript--the authors have made two contributions. They have illuminated the work of two thinkers, who independently developed similar forms of ontological rhetoric while working from very different times and places. Hyde and Kopp have also for the first time made Erhard's extraordinary form of ontological rhetoric available for a wide range of audiences, from scholars at work within a variety of academic disciplines to anyone interested in exploring the possibility of being for human beings.

From the Afterword:

I regard Speaking Being as an enormously important contribution to understanding Heidegger and Erhard. The latter has received far too little serious academic attention, and this book begins to make up for that lack. Moreover, the book's analysis of Heidegger's thought is among the best that I have ever read. I commend this book to all readers without reservation.

Michael E. Zimmerman, Professor Emeritus, University of Colorado, Boulder

Product details

• Authors: Bruc Hyde, Bruce Hyde, Bruce (Australian National University) Hyde, Bruce (Australian National University) Kopp Hyde, Bruce Kopp Hyde, Drew Kopp, Drew Hyde Kopp
• Publisher: Wiley, John and Sons Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.04.2019
• EAN: 9781119549901
• ISBN: 978-1-119-54990-1
• No. of pages: 576
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Business > Management; Führung, Philosophie, Sprachphilosophie, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy, Business & management, Wirtschaft u. Management, Wirtschaft u. Gesellschaft, Business & Society