Cf. e.g. the interesting ambiguity of
Latin 'hospes', meaning both 'host' and 'guest', as in
Hadrian's famous epitaph,
animula vagula
blandula,
hospes comesque corporis, which I translate against the conventional grain as
"Vagabonding, tender, little soul,
Host and companion to the body."
"Vagabonding, tender, little soul,
Host and companion to the body."
Embodied human being itself is 'ensouled' and 'enminded', thus enlivened and opened to
the play of presencing and absencing as such in the
time-clearing, for which it is used (gebraucht), to which it is ineludibly exposed. It is used also for the play of revealing and concealing, including even the self-concealing of the enigmatic abyss that is the clearing's heart. The play of presencing and absencing and the play of revealing and concealing cross as in a matrix, giving rise to various combinations, six in total.
The human body is a used vehicle.
Der menschliche Leib ist ein Gebrauchtwagen.
Further on concealment &c.: 5. Heidegger's reading of Parmenides radically simplified
The human body is a used vehicle.
Der menschliche Leib ist ein Gebrauchtwagen.
Further on concealment &c.: 5. Heidegger's reading of Parmenides radically simplified
I have recently read Jean-Luc Nancy's comments from the 1990s on the same topic. In a 1994 lecture he tentatively borrows the concept of "soul" to indicate what he calls the body's difference from itself. Then in 2008 we get a more fully articulated, but still with the word "soul," version. His two books on the deconstruction of Christianity demonstrate an interest in renewing the common heritage but all the while denying the promise of any sort of organized religion. I interpret that as almost a desperation with the fading of Enlightenment humanism. His documents are freely available online.
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